POOR  MAN'S 
ROCK 


BERTRAND  W  SINCLAIR 


OP  THE 
UNIVERSITY 

O      Of      ^ 


POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 


BERTRAND  W.  SINCLAIR 

North  of  Fifty-Three 
Big  Timber 
Burned  Bridges 
Poor  Man's  Rock 


afraid  I  must  apologize  for  my  father/'  she  said 
simply.  —  Frontispiece.     Seepage  15. 


POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 


BY 


BERTRAND  W.  SINCLAIR 


WITH   FRONTISPIECE  BY 

FRANK  TENNEY  JOHNSON 


BOSTON 

LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY 

1920 


Copyright  1920, 
By  Little,  Brown,  and  Company 

All  rights  reserved 
Published  September,  1920 


THE  UNIVEHSITY  PRESS,  CAMBRIDGE,  MASS.,  U.  S.  A. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Prologue  —  Long,  Long  Ago 1 

CHAPTER 

I.    The  House  in  Cradle  Bay 12 

II.    His  Own  Country      18 

III.  The  Flutter  of  Sable  Wings     ...  27 

IV.  Inheritance 39 

V.    From  the  Bottom  Up 52 

VI.    The  Springboard '.    .    .    .  60 

VII.    Sea  Boots  and  Salmon 75 

VIII.    Vested  Rights 84 

IX.    The  Complexity  of   Simple  Matters  92 

X.    Thrust  and  Counterthrust    ....  106 

XL    Peril  of  the  Sea 125 

XII.    Between  Sun  and  Sun 141 

XIII.    An  Interlude 156 

XIV.    The  Swing  of  the  Pendulum     .    .    .  173 

XV.    Hearts  are  not  Always  Trumps     .    .  183 

XVI.    En  Famille 202 

XVII.    Business  as  Usual      214 

XVin.    A  Renewal  of  Hostilities 239 

XIX.   Top  Dog 264 

XX.    The  Dead  and  Dusty  Past 280 

XXI.    As  IT  was  in  the  Beginning    ....  292 

V 

ivi599453 


POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 


PROLOGUE 
Long,  Long  Ago 

The  Gulf  of  Georgia  spread  away  endlessly,  an  im- 
mense, empty  stretch  of  water  bared  to  the  hot  eye  of 
an  August  sun,  its  broad  face  only  saved  from  oily 
smoothness  by  half-hearted  flutterings  of  a  westerly 
breeze.  Those  faint  airs  blowing  up  along  the  Vancouver 
Island  shore  made  tentative  efforts  to  fill  and  belly  out 
strongly  the  mainsail  and  jib  of  a  small  half-decked 
sloop  working  out  from  the  weather  side  of  Sangster 
Island  and  laying  her  snub  nose  straight  for  the  mouth 
of  the  Fraser  River,  some  sixty  sea-miles  east  by  south. 

In  the  stem  sheets  a  young  man  stood,  resting  one 
hand  on  the  tiller,  his  navigating  a  sinecure,  for  the 
wind  was  barely  enough  to  give  him  steerageway.  He 
was,  one  would  say,  about  twenty-five  or  six,  fairly  tali, 
healthily  tanned,  with  clear  blue  eyes  having  a  touch  of 
steely  gray  in  their  blue  depths,  and  he  was  unmistak- 
ably of  that  fair  type  which  runs  to  sandy  hair  and 
freckles.  He  was  dressed  in  a  light-colored  shirt,  blue 
serge  trousers,  canvas  shoes ;  his  shirt  sleeves,  rolled  to 
the  elbows,  bared  flat,  sinewy  forearms. 

He  turned  his  head  to  look  back  to  where  in  the  dis- 
tance a  white  speck  showed  far  astern,  and  his  eyes 
narrowed  and  clouded.    But  there  was  no  cloud  in  them 


2  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

when  he  turned  again  to  his  companion,  a  girl  sitting 
on  a  box  just  outside  the  radius  of  the  tiller.  She  was 
an  odd-looking  figure  to  be  sitting  in  the  cockpit  of  a 
fishing  boat,  amid  recent  traces  of  business  with  salmon, 
codfish,  and  the  like.  The  heat  was  putting  a  point  on 
the  smell  of  defunct  fish.  The  dried  scales  of  them  still 
clung  to  the  small  vessel's  timbers.  In  keeping,  the 
girl  should  have  been  buxom,  red-handed,  coarsely 
healthy.  And  she  was  anything  but  that.  No  frail, 
delicate  creature,  mind  you,  —  but  she  did  not  belong 
in  a  fishing  boat.  She  looked  the  lady,  carried  herself 
like  one,  —  patrician  from  the  top  of  her  russet- 
crowned  head  to  the  tips  of  her  white  kid  slippers.  Yet 
her  eyes,  when  she  lifted  them  to  the  man  at  the  tiller, 
glowed  with  something  warm.  She  stood  up  and  slipped 
a  silk-draped'  arm  through  his.  He  smiled  down  at  her, 
a  tender  smile  tempered  with  uneasiness,  and  then  bent 
his  head  and  kissed  her. 

"Doi  you  think  they  will  overtake  us,  Donald?"  she 
asked  at  length. 

''  That  depends  on  the  wind,"  he  answered.  "  If  these 
light  airs  hold  they  may  overhaul  us,  because  they  can 
spread  so  much  more  cloth.  But  if  the  westerly  fresh- 
ens—  and  it  nearly  always  does  in  the  afternoon  — 
I  can  outsail  the  Gvll.  I  can  drive  this  old  tub  full 
sail  in  a  blow  that  will  make  the  Gull  tie  in  her  last 
reef." 

"  I  don't  like  it  when  it 's  rough,"  the  girl  said  wist- 
fully.    "  But  I  '11  pray  for  a  blow  this  afternoon." 

If  indeed  she  prayed  —  and  her  attitude  was  scarcely 
prayerful,  for  it  consisted  of  sitting  with  one  hand 
clasped  tight  in  her  lover's  —  her  prayer  fell  dully  on 
the  ears  of  the  wind  god.  The  light  airs  fluttered 
gently  off  the  bluish  haze  of  Vancouver  Island,  wavered 


LONG,  LONG  AGO  3 

across  the  Gulf,  kept  the  sloop  moving,  but  no  more. 
Sixty  miles  away  the  mouth  of  the  Fraser  opened  to 
them  what  security  they  desired.  But  behind  them 
power  and  authority  crept  up  apace.  In  two  hours 
they  could  distinguish  clearly  the  rig  of  the  pursuing 
yacht.  In  another  hour  she  was  less  than  a  mile  astern, 
creeping  inexorably  nearer. 

The  man  in  the  sloop  could  only  stand  on,  hoping  for 
the  usual  afternoon  westerly  to  show  its  teeth. 

In  the  end,  when  the  afternoon  was  waxing  late,  the 
stemward  vessel  stood  up  so  that  every  detail  of  her 
loomed  plain.  She  was  full  cutter-rigged,  spreading 
hundreds  of  feet  of  canvas.  Every  working  sail  was 
set,  and  every  hght  air  cloth  that  could  catch  a  puff  of 
air.  The  slanting  sun  rays  glittered  on  her  white  paint 
and  glossy  varnish,  struck  flashing  on  bits  of  polished 
brass.  She  looked  her  name,  the  Gull,  a  thing  of  ex- 
ceeding grace  and  beauty,  gliding  soundlessly  across 
a  sun-shimmering  sea.  But  she  represented  only  a 
menace  to  the  man  and  woman  in  the  fish-soiled  sloop. 

The  man's  face  darkened  as  he  watched  the  distance 
lessen  between  the  two  craft.  He  reached  under  a  locker 
and  drew  out  a  rifle.  The  girl's  high  pinkish  color  fled. 
She  caught  him  by  the  arm. 

"  Donald,  Donald,"  she  said  breathlessly,  "  there 's 
not  to  be  any  fighting." 

"Am  I  to  let  them  lay  alongside,  hand  you  aboard, 
and  then  sail  back  to  Maple  Point,  laughing  at  us 
for  soft  and  simple  fools  ?  "  he  said  quietly.  "  They 
can't  take  you  from  me  so  easily  as  that.  There  are 
only  three  of  them  aboard.  I  won't  hurt  them  unless 
they  force  me  to  it,  but  I  'm  not  so  chicken-hearted  as 
to  let  them  have  things  all  their  own  way.  Sometimes  a 
man  must  fight,  Bessie." 


4  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

"You  don't  know  my  father,"  the  girl  whimpered. 
"  Nor  grandpa.  He 's  there.  I  can  see  his  white  beard. 
They'll  kill  you,  Donald,  if  you  oppose  them.  You 
mustn't  do  that.  It  is  better  that  I  should  go  back 
quietly  than  that  there  should  be  blood  spHled  over 
me." 

"But  I  'm  not  intending  to  slaughter  them,"  the  man 
said  soberly.  "If  I  warn  them  off  and  they  board  me 
like  a  bunch  of  pirates,  then — then  it  will  be  their  look- 
out. Do  you  want  to  go  back,  Bessie .^  Are  you  doubt- 
ful about  your  bargain  already?" 

The  tears  started  in  her  eyes. 

"For  shame  to  say  that,"  she  whispered.  "Lord 
knows  I  don't  want  to  turn  back  from  anything  that 
includes  you,  Don.  But  my  father  and  grandpa  will 
be  furious.  They  won't  hesitate  to  vent  their  temper 
on  you  if  you  oppose  them.  They  are  accustomed  to 
respect.  To  have  their  authority  flouted  rouses  them 
to  fury.  And  they  're  three  to  one.  Put  away  your 
gun,  Donald.  If  we  can't  outsail  the  Gull  I  shall  have 
to  go  back  without  a  struggle.  There  will  be  another 
time.     They  can't  change  my  heart." 

"  They  can  break  your  spirit  though — -and  they  will, 
for  this,"  he  muttered. 

But  he  laid  the  rifle  down  on  the  locker.  The  girl 
snuggled  her  hand  into  his. 

"You  will  not  quarrel  with  them,  Donald — -please, 
no  matter  what  they  say?  Promise  me  that,"  she 
pleaded.  "  If  we  can't  outrun  them,  if  they  come  along- 
side, you  will  not  fight?  I  shall  go  back  obediently. 
You  can  send  word  to  me  by  Andrew  Murdock.  Next 
time  we  shall  not  fail." 

"  There  will  be  noi  next  time,  Bessie,"  he  said  slowly. 
**You   will   never   get    another   chance.      I   know   the 


LONG,  LONG  AGO  5 

Gowers  and  Mortons  better  than  you  do,  for  all  you  're 
one  of  them.  They  '11  make  you  wish  you  had  never 
been  bom,  that  you  'd  never  seen  me.  I  'd  rather  fight 
it  out  now.  Is  n't  our  own  happiness  worth  a  blow  or 
two?" 

*^I  can't  bear  to  think  what  might  happen  if  you 
defied  them  out  here  on  this  lonely  sea,"  she  shuddered. 
"  You  must  promise  me,  Donald." 

"I  promise,  then,"  he  said  with  a  sigh.  "Only  I 
know  it 's  the  end  of  our  dream,  my  dear.  And  I  'm 
disappointed,  too.  I  thought  you  had  a  stouter  heart, 
that  wouldn't  quail  before  two  angry  old  men  —  and 
a  jealous  young  one.  You  can  see,  I  suppose,  that 
Horace  is  there,  too. 

"Damn  them!"  he  broke  out  passionately  after  a 
minute's  silence.  "It's  a  free  country,  and  you  and 
I  are  not  children.  They  chase  us  as  if  we  were  pirates. 
For  two  pins  I  'd  give  them  a  pirate's  welcome.  I  tell 
you,  Bessie,  my  promise  to  be  meek  and  mild  is  not 
worth  much  if  they  take  a  high  hand  with  me.  I  can 
take  their  measure,  all  three  of  them." 

"But  you  must  not,'*  the  girl  insisted.  "You've 
promised.  We  can't  help  ourselves  by  violence.  It 
would  break  my  heart." 

'^'They'll  do  that  fast  enough,  once  they  get  you 
home,"  he  answered  gloomily. 

The  girl's  lips  quivered.  She  sat  looking  back  at  the 
cutter  half  a  cable  astern.  The  westerly  had  failed 
them.  The  spreading  canvas  of  the  yacht  was  already 
blanketing  the  little  sloop,  stealing  what  little  wind 
filled  her  sail.  And  as  the  sloop's  way  slackened  the 
other  slid  down  upon  her,  a  purl  of  water  at  her  fore- 
foot, her  wide  mainsail  bellying  out  in  a  snowy  curve. 

There  were  three  men  in  her.     The  helmsman  was  a 


6  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

patriarcK,  his  head  showing  white,  a  full  white  bearcl 
descending  from  his  chin,  a  fierce-visaged,  vigorous  old 
man.  Near  him  stood  a  man  of  middle  age,  a  ruddj- 
faced  man  in  whose  dark  blue  eyes  a  flame  burned  as  he 
eyed  the  two  in  the  sloop.  The  third  was  younger  still, 
—  a  short,  sturdy  fellow  in  flannels,  tending  the  main- 
sheet  with  a  frowning  glance. 

The  man  in  the  sloop  held  his  course. 

"  Damn  you,  MacRae ;  lay  to,  or  I  '11  run  you  down," 
the  patriarch  at  the  cutter's  wheel  shouted,  when  a 
boat's  length  separated  the  two  craft. 

MacRae's  lips  moved  slightly,  but  no  sound  issued 
therefrom.  Leaning  on  the  tiller,  he  let  the  sloop  run. 
So  for  a  minute  the  boats  sailed,  the  white  yacht  edging 
up  on  the  sloop  until  it  seemed  as  if  her  broaded-off  boom 
would  rake  and  foul  the  other.  But  when  at  last  she 
drew  fully  abreast  the  two  men  sheeted  mainsail  and  jib 
flat  while  the  white-headed  helmsman  threw  her  over 
so  that  the  yacht  drove  in  on  the  sloop  and  the  two 
younger  men  grappled  MacRae's  coaming  with  boat 
hooks,  and  side  by  side  they  came  slowly  up  into  the 
wind. 

MacRae  made  no  move,  said  nothing,  only  regarded 
the  three  with  sober  intensity.  They,  for  their  part, 
wasted  no  breath  on  him. 

"  Elizabeth,  get  in  here,"  the  girl's  father  commanded. 

It  was  only  a  matter  of  stepping  over  the  rubbing 
gunwales.  The  girl  rose.  She  cast  an  appealing  glance 
at  MacRae.  His  face  did  not  alter.  She  stepped  up 
on  the  guard,  disdaining  the  hand  young  Gower  ex- 
tended to  help  her,  and  sprang  lightly  into  the  cockpit 
of  the  Gull. 

"As  for  you,  you  calculating  blackguard,"  her 
father  addressed  MacRae,   "if  you  ever  set  foot  on 


LONG,  LONG  AGO  7 

Maple  Point  again,  I  '11  have  you  horsewhipped  first 
and  jailed  for  trespass  after." 

For  a  second  MacRae  made  no  answer.  His  nos- 
trils dilated;  his  blue-gray  eyes  darkened  till  they 
seemed  black.  Then  he  said  with  a  curious  hoarseness, 
and  in  a  voice  pitched  so  low  it  was  scarcely  audible: 

"Take  your  boat  hooks  out  of  me  and  be  on  your 
way." 

The  older  man  withdrew  his  hook.  Young  Gower 
held  on  a  second  longer,  matching  the  undisguised 
hatred  in  Donald  MacRae's  eyes  with  a  fury  in  his 
own.  His  round,  boyish  face  purpled.  And  when  he 
withdrew  the  boat  hook  he  swung  the  inch-thick  iron- 
shod  pole  with  a  swift  twist  of  his  body  and  struck 
MacRae  fairly  across  the  face. 

MacRae  went  down  in  a  heap  as  the  Gull  swung 
away.  The  faint  breeze  out  of  the  west  filled  the  cut- 
ter's sails.  She  stood  away  on  a  long  tack  south  by 
west,  with  a  frightened  girl  cowering  down  in  her  cabin, 
sobbing  in  grief  and  fear,  and  three  men  in  the  GvlVs 
cockpit  casting  dubious  glances  at  one  another  and 
back  to  the  fishing  sloop  sailing  with  no  hand  on  her 
tiller. 

In  an  hour  the  Gull  was  four  miles  to  windward  of 
the  sloop.  The  breeze  had  taken  a  sudden  shift  full 
half  the  compass.  A  southeast  wind  came  backing  up 
against  the  westerly.  There  was  in  its  breath  a  hint 
of  something  stronger. 

Masterless,  the  sloop  sailed,  laid  to,  started  off  again 
erratically,  and  after  many  shifts  ran  off  before  this 
stiffer  wind.  Unhelmed,  she  laid  her  blunt  bows  straight 
for  the  opening  between  Sangster  and  Squitty  islands. 
On  the  cockpit  floor  Donald  MacRae  sprawled  unheed- 
ing.   Blood  from  his  broken  face  oozed  over  the  boards. 


8  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

Above  him  the  boom  swung  creaking  and  he  did  not 
hear.  Out  of  the  southeast  a  bank  of  cloud  crept  up  to 
obscure  the  sun.  Far  southward  the  Gulf  was  dark- 
ened, and  across  that  darkened  area  specks  and  splashes 
of  white  began  to  show  and  disappear.  The  hot  air 
grew  strangely  cool.  The  swell  that  runs  far  before  a 
Gulf  southeaster  began  to  roll  the  sloop,  abandoned  to 
all  the  aimless  movements  of  a  vessel  uncontrolled.  She 
came  up  into  the  wind  and  went  off  before  it  again, 
her  sails  bellying  strongly,  racing  as  if  to  outrun  the 
swells  which  now  here  and  there  lifted  and  broke.  She 
dropped  into  a  hollow,  a  following  sea  slewed  her  stern 
sharply,  and  she  jibed,  —  that  is,  the  wind  caught  the 
mainsail  and  flung  it  violently  from  port  to  starboard. 
The  boom  swept  an  arc  of  a  hundred  degrees  and  put 
her  rail  under  when  it  brought  up  with  a  jerk  on  the 
sheet. 

Ten  minutes  later  she  jibed  again.  This  time  the 
mainsheet  parted.  Only  stout,  heavily  ironed  backstays 
kept  mainsail  and  boom  from  being  blown  straight 
ahead.  The  boom  end  swung  outboard  till  it  dragged 
in  the  seas  as  she  rolled.  Only  by  a  miracle  and  the 
stoutest  of  standing  gear  had  she  escaped  dismasting. 
Now,  with  the  mainsail  broadedoff  to  starboard,  and  the 
jib  by  some  freak  of  wind  and  sea  winged  out  to  port, 
the  sloop  drove  straight  before  the  wind,  holding  as 
true  a  course  as  if  the  limp  body  on  the  cockpit  floor 
laid  an  invisible,  controlling  hand  on  sheet  and  tiller. 

And  he,  while  that  fair  wind  grew  to  a  yachtsman's 
gale  and  lashed  the  Gulf  of  Georgia  into  petty  convul- 
sions, lay  where  he  had  fallen,  his  head  rolling  as  his 
vessel  rolled,  heedless  when  she  rose  and  raced  on  a 
wave-crest  or  fell  laboring  in  the  trough  when  a  wave 
slid  out  from  under  her. 


LONG,  LONG  AGO  9 

The  sloop  had  all  but  doubled  on  her  course, — 
nearly  but  not  quite,  —  and  the  few  points  north  of  west 
that  she  shifted  bore  her  straight  to  destruction. 

MacRae  opened  his  eyes  at  last.  He  was  bewildered 
and  sick.  His  head  swam.  There  was  a  series  of  stab- 
bing pains  in  his  lacerated  face.  But  he  was  of  the 
sea,  of  that  breed  which  survives  by  dint  of  fortitude, 
endurance,  stoutness  of  arm  and  quickness  of  wit.  He 
clawed  to  his  feet.  Almost  before  him  lifted  the  bleak 
southern  face  of  Squitty  Island.  Point  Old  jutted 
out  like  a  barrier.  MacRae  swung  on  the  tiller.  But 
the  wind  had  the  mainsail  in  its  teeth.  Without  control 
of  that  boom  his  rudder  could  not  serve  him. 

And  as  he  crawled  forward  to  try  to  lower  sail,  or 
get  a  rope's  end  on  the  boom,  whichever  would  do,  the 
sloop  struck  on  a  rock  that  stands  awash  at  half-tide, 
a  brown  hummock  of  granite  lifting  out  of  the  sea  two 
hundred  feet  off  the  tip  of  Point  Old. 

She  struck  with  a  shock  that  sent  MacRae  sprawl- 
ing, arrested  full  in  an  eight-knot  stride.  As  she  hung 
shuddering  on  the  rock,  impaled  by  a  jagged  tooth,  a 
sea  lifted  over  her  stem  and  swept  her  like  a  watery 
broom  that  washed  MacRae  off  the  cabin  top,  off  the 
rock  itself  into  deep  water  beyond. 

He  came  up  gasping.  The  cool  immersion  had  as- 
tonishingly revived  him.  He  felt  a  renewal  of  his 
strength,  and  he  had  been  cast  by  luck  into  a  place 
from  which  it  took  no  more  than  the  moderate  effort 
of  an  able  swimmer  to  reach  shore.  Point  Old  stood 
at  an  angle  to  the  smashing  seas,  making  a  sheltered 
bight  behind  it,  and  into  this  bight  the  flooding  tide  set 
in  a  slow  eddy.  MacRae  had  only  to  keep  himself 
afloat. 

In  five  minutes  his  feet  touched  on  a  gravel  beach. 


10  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

He  walked  dripping  out  of  the  languid  swell  that  ran 
from  the  turbulence  outside  and  turned  to  look  back. 
The  sloop  had  lodged  on  the  rock,  bilged  by  the  ragged 
granite.  The  mast  was  down,  mast  and  sodden  sails 
swinging  at  the  end  of  a  stay  as  each  sea  swept  over 
the  rock  with  a  hissing  roar. 

MacRae  climbed  to  higher  ground.  He  sat  down 
beside  a  stunted,  leaning  fir  and  watched  his  boat  go. 
It  was  soon  done.  A  bigger  sea  than  most  tore  the 
battered  hull  loose,  lifted  it  high,  let  it  drop.  The 
crack  of  breaking  timbers  cut  through  the  boom  of 
the  surf.  The  next  sea  swept  the  rock  clear,  and  the 
broken,  twisted  hull  floated  awash.  Caught  in  the  tidal 
eddy  it  began  its  slow  j  oumey  to  j  oin  the  vast  accumu- 
lation of  driftwood  on  the  beach. 

MacRae  glanced  along  the  island  shore.  He  knew 
that  shore  slightly,  —  a  bald,  cliify  stretch  notched  with 
rocky  pockets  in  which  the  surf  beat  itself  into  dirty 
foam.  If  he  had  grounded  anywhere  in  that  mile  of 
headland  north  of  Point  Old,  his  bones  would  have  been 
ibroken  like  the  timbers  of  his  sloop. 

But  his  eyes  did  not  linger  there  nor  his  thoughts 
upon  shipwreck  and  sudden  death.  His  gaze  turned 
across  the  Gulf  to  a  tongue  of  land  outthrusting  from 
the  long  purple  reach  of  Vancouver  Island.  Behind 
that  point  lay  the  Morton  estate,  and  beside  the  Mor- 
ton boundaries,  matching  them  mile  for  mile  in  wealth 
of  virgin  timber  and  fertile  meadow,  spread  the  Gower 
lands. 

His  face,  streaked  and  blotched  with  drying  blood- 
stains, scarred  with  a  red  gash  that  split  his  cheek  from 
the  hair  above  one  ear  to  a  comer  of  his  mouth,  hard- 
ened into  ugly  lines.    His  eyes  burned  again. 

This  happened  many  years  ago,  long  before  a  har- 


LONG,  LONG  AGO  ii 

assed  world  had  to  reckon  with  bourgeois  and  Bolshevik, 
when  profiteer  and  pacifist  had  not  yet  become  words 
to  fill  the  mouths  of  men,  and  not  even  the  politicians 
had  thought  of  saving  the  world  for  democracy.  Yet 
men  and  women  were  strangely  as  they  are  now.  A 
generation  may  change  its  manners,  its  outward  seem- 
ing; it  does  not  change  in  its  loving  and  hating,  in  its 
fundamental  passions,  its  inherent  reactions. 

MacRae's  face  worked.  His  lips  quivered  as  he 
stared  across  the  troubled  sea.  He  lifted  his  hands  in  a 
swift  gesture  of  appeal. 

**  0  God,"  he  cried,  "  curse  and  blast  them  in  all 
their  ways  and  enterprises  if  they  deal  with  her  as  they 
have  dealt  with  me." 


CHAPTER  I 

The  House  in  Cradi^e  Bay 

On  an  afternoon  in  the  first  week  of  November,  1918, 
under  a  sky  bank  full  of  murky  cloud  and  an  air 
freighted  with  a  chill  which  threatened  untimely  snow, 
a  man  came  rowing  up  along  the  western  side  of  Squitty 
Island  and  turned  into  Cradle  Bay,  which  lies  under  the 
lee  of  Point  Old.  He  was  a  young  man,  almost  boyish- 
looking.  He  had  on  a  pair  of  fine  tan  shoes,  brown 
overalls,  a  new  gray  mackinaw  coat  buttoned  to  his  chin. 
He  was  bareheaded.  Also  he  wore  a  patch  of  pink  cel- 
luloid over  his  right  eye. 

When  he  turned  into  the  small  half-moon  bight,  he 
let  up  on  his  oars  and  drifted,  staring  with  a  touch  of 
surprise  at  a  white  cottage-roofed  house  with  wide 
porches  sitting  amid  an  acre  square  of  bright  green 
lawn  on  a  gentle  slope  that  ran  up  from  a  narrow 
beach  backed  by  a  low  sea-wall  of  stone  where  the 
gravel  ended  and  the  earth  began. 

"  Hm-m-m,"  he  muttered.  "  It  was  n't  built  yester- 
day, either.     Funny  he  never  mentioned  that.^^ 

He  pushed  on  the  oars  and  the  boat  slid  nearer  shore, 
the  man's  eyes  still  steadfast  on  the  house.  It  stood 
out  bold  against  the  grass  and  the  deeper  green  of  the 
forest  behind.  Back  of  it  opened  a  hillside  brown  with 
dead  ferns,  dotted  with  great  solitary  firs  and  gnarly 
branched  arbutus. 

No  life  appeared  there.     The  chimneys  were  dead. 


THE  HOUSE  IN  CRADLE  BAY  13 

Two  moorings  bobbed  in  the  bay,  but  there  was  no 
craft  save  a  white  rowboat  hauled  high  above  tidewater 
and  canted  on  its  side. 

"  I  wonder,  now."    He  spoke  again. 

While  he  wondered  and  pushed  his  boat  slowly  in  on 
the  gravel,  a  low  pr—r-r  and  a  sibilant  ripple  of  water 
caused  him  to  look  behind.  A  high-bowed,  shining  ma- 
hogany cruiser,  seventy  feet  or  more  over  all,  rounded 
the  point  and  headed  into  the  bay.  The  smooth  sea 
parted  with  a  whistling  sound  where  her  brass-shod 
stem  split  it  like  a  knife.  She  slowed  down  from  this 
trainlike  speed,  stopped,  picked  up  a  mooring,  made 
fast.  The  swell  from  her  rolled  in,  swashing  heavily  on 
the  beach. 

The  man  in  the  rowboat  turned  his  attention  to  the 
cruiser.  There  were  people  aboard  to  the  number  of  a 
dozen,  men  and  women,  clustered  on  her  flush  after- 
deck.  He  could  hear  the  clatter  of  their  tongues,  low 
ripples  of  laughter,  through  all  of  which  ran  the  im- 
patient note  of  a  male  voice  issuing  peremptory  orders. 

The  cruiser  blew  her  whistle  repeatedly,  —  shrill,  im- 
perative blasts.  The  man  in  the  rowboat  smiled.  The 
air  was  very  still.  Sounds  carry  over  quiet  water  as  if 
telephoned.     He  could  not  help  hearing  what  was  said. 

"Wise  management,"  he  observed  ironically,  under 
his  breath. 

The  power  yacht,  it  seemed,  had  not  so  much  as  a 
dinghy  aboard. 

A  figure  on  the  deck  detached  itself  from  the  group 
and  waved  a  beckoning  hand  to  the  rowboat. 

The  rower  hesitated,  frowning.  Then  he  shrugged 
his  shoulders  and  pulled  out  and  alongside.  The  deck 
crew  lowered  a  set  of  steps. 

"  Take  a  couple  of  us  ashore,  will  you  ?  "    He  was  ad- 


14  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

dressed  by  a  short,  stout  man.  He  was  very  round  and 
pink  of  face,  very  well  dressed,  and  by  the  manner  in 
which  he  spoke  to  the  others,  and  the  glances  he  cast 
ashore,  a  person  of  some  consequence  in  great  im- 
patience. 

The  young  man  laid  his  rowboat  against  the  steps. 

"  Climb  in,"  he  said  briefly. 

"You,  Smith,  come  along,"  the  round-faced  one  ad- 
dressed a  youth  in  tight  blue  jersey  and  peaked  cap. 

The  deck  boy  climbed  obediently  down.  A  girl  in 
white  duck  and  heavy  blue  sweater  put  her  foot  on  the 
steps. 

"  I  think  I  shall  go  too,  papa,"  she  said. 

Her  father  nodded  and  followed  her. 

The  rowboat  nosed  in  beside  the  end  of  a  narrow  float 
that  ran  from  the  sea  wall.  The  boy  in  the  jersey 
sprang  out,  reached  a  steadying  hand  to  his  employer. 
The  girl  stepped  lightly  to  the  planked  logs. 

"  Give  the  boy  a  lift  on  that  boat  to  the  chuck,  will 
you?  "  the  stout  person  made  further  request,  indicat- , 
ing  the  white  boat  bottom  up  on  shore. 

A  queer  expression  gleamed  momentarily  in  the  eyes 
of  the  boatman.  But  it  passed.  He  did  not  speak,  but 
made  for  the  dinghy,  followed  by  the  hand  from  the 
yacht.  They  turned  the  boat  over,  slid  it  down  and 
afloat.    The  sailor  got  in  and  began  to  ship  his  oars. 

The  man  and  the  girl  stood  by  till  this  was  done. 
Then  the  girl  turned  away.  The  man  extended  his 
hand. 

"Thanks,"  he  said  curtly. 

The  other's  hand  had  involuntarily  moved.  The 
short,  stout  man  dropped  a  silver  dollar  in  it,  swung  on 
his  heel  and  followed  his  daughter, — passed  her,  in  fact, 
for  she  had  only  taken  a  step  or  two  and  halted. 


THE  HOUSE  IN  CRADLE  BAY  15 

The  young  fellow  eyed  the  silver  coin  in  his  hand 
with  an  expression  that  passed  from  astonishment  to 
anger  and  broke  at  last  into  a  smile  of  sheer  amuse- 
ment. He  jiggled  the  coin,  staring  at  it  thoughtfully. 
Then  he  faced  about  on  the  jerseyed  youth  about  to 
dip  his  blades. 

"  Smith,"  he  said,  "  I  suppose  if  I  heaved  this  silver 
dollar  out  into  the  chuck  you  'd  think  I  was  crazy." 

The  youth  only  stared  at  him. 

"  You  don't  object  to  tips,  do  you.  Smith?  "  the  man 
in  the  mackinaw  inquired. 

"  Gee,  no,"  the  boy  observed.  "  Ain't  you  got  no  use 
for  money  ?  " 

"  Not  this  kind.    You  take  it  and  buy  smokes." 

He  flipped  the  dollar  into  the  dinghy.  It  fell  clinking 
on  the  slatted  floor  and  the  youth  salvaged  it,  looked 
it  over,  put  it  in  his  pocket. 

"  Gee,"  he  said.  "  Any  time  a  guy  hands  me  money 
I  keep  it,  believe  me." 

His  gaze  rested  curiously  on  the  man  with  the  patch 
over  his  eye.  His  familiar  grin  faded.  He  touched  his 
cap. 

"Thank  y',  sir." 

He  heaved  on  his  oars.  The  boat  slid  out.  The  man 
stood  watching,  hands  deep  in  his  pockets.  A  dis- 
pleased look  replaced  the  amused  smile  as  his  glance 
rested  a  second  on  the  rich  man's  toy  of  polished  ma- 
hogany and  shining  brass.  Then  he  turned  to  look 
again  at  the  house  up  the  slope  and  found  the  girl  at 
his  elbow. 

He  did  not  know  if  she  had  overheard  him,  and  he  did 
not  at  the  moment  care.  He  met  her  glance  with  one 
as  impersonal  as  her  own. 

"I'm  afraid  I  must  apologize  for  my  father,"   she 


i6  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

said  simply.  "I  hope  you  aren't  offended.  It  was 
awfully  good  of  you  to  bring  us  ashore." 

"That's  quite  all  right,"  he  answered  casually. 
"Why  should  I  be  offended?  When  a  roughneck  does 
something  for  you,  it's  proper  to  hand  him  some  of 
your  loose  change.     Perfectly  natural." 

"But  you  aren't  anything  of  the  sort,"  she  said 
frankly.  "  I  feel  sure  you  resent  being  tipped  for  an 
act  of  courtesy.     It  was  very  thoughtless  of  papa." 

"  Some  people  are  so  used  to  greasing  their  way  with 
money  that  they  '11  hand  St.  Peter  a  ten-dollar  bill  when 
they  pass  the  heavenly  gates,"  he  observed.  "But  it 
really  does  n't  matter.  Tell  me  something.  Whose 
house  is  that,  and  how  long  has  it  been  there?  " 

"  Ours,"  she  answered.  "  Two  years.  We  stay  here 
a  good  deal  in  the  summer." 

"Ours,  I  daresay,  means  Horace  A.  Gower,"  he  re- 
marked. "  Pardon  my  curiosity,  but  you  see  I  used  to 
know  this  place  rather  well.  I  've  been  away  for  some 
time.    Things  seem  to  have  changed  a  bit." 

"You're  just  back  from  overseas?"  she  asked 
quickly. 

He  nodded.     She  looked  at  him  with  livelier  interest. 

"  I  'm  no  wounded  hero,"  he  forestalled  the  inevitable 
question.  "  I  merely  happened  to  get  a  splinter  of  wood 
in  one  eye,  so  I  have  leave  until  it  gets  well." 

"  If  you  are  merely  on  leave,  why  are  you  not  in  uni- 
form? "  she  asked  quickly,  in  a  puzzled  tone. 

"  I  am,"  he  replied  shortly.  "  Only  it  is  covered 
up  with  overalls  and  mackinaw.  Well,  I  must  be  off. 
Good-by,  Miss  Gower." 

He  pushed  his  boat  off  the  beach,  rowed  to  the  oppo- 
site side  of  the  bay,  and  hauled  the  small  craft  up  over 
a  log.     Then  he  took  his  bag  in  hand  and  climbed  the 


THE  HOUSE  IN  CRADLE  BAY  17 

rise  that  lifted  to  the  backbone  of  Point  Old.  Halfway 
up  he  turned  to  look  briefly  backward  over  beach  and 
yacht  and  house,  up  the  veranda  steps  of  which  the 
girl  in  the  blue  sweater  was  now  climbing. 

"  It 's  queer,"  he  muttered. 

He  went  on.  In  another  minute  he  was  on  the  ridge. 
The  Gulf  opened  out,  a  dead  dull  gray.  The  skies  were 
hidden  behind  drab  clouds.  The  air  was  clammy,  cold, 
hushed,  as  if  the  god  of  storms  were  gathering  his 
breath  for  a  great  effort. 

And  Jack  MacRae  himself,  when  he  topped  the  height 
which  gave  clear  vision  for  many  miles  of  shore  and  sea, 
drew  a  deep  breath  and  halted  for  a  long  look  at  many 
familiar  things. 

He  had  been  gone  nearly  four  years.  It  seemed  to 
him  but  yesterday  that  he  left.  The  picture  was  un- 
changed, —  save  for  that  white  cottage  in  its  square  of 
green.  He  stared  at  that  with  a  doubtful  expression, 
then  his  uncovered  eye  came  back  to  the  long  sweep  of 
the  Gulf,  to  the  brown  cliffs  spreading  away  in  a  ragged 
line  along  a  kelp-strewn  shore.  He  put  down  the  bag 
and  seated  himself  on  a  mossy  rock  close  by  a  stunted, 
leaning  fir  and  stared  about  him  like  a  man  who  has 
come  a  great  way  to  see  something  and  means  to  look 
his  fiU. 


CHAPTER   II 
His  Own  Country 

Squitty  Island  lies  in  the  Gulf  of  Georgia  midway 
between  a  mainland  made  of  mountains  like  the  Alps, 
the  Andes,  and  the  Himalayas  all  jumbled  together 
and  all  rising  sheer  from  the  sea,  and  the  low  delta-like 
shore  of  Vancouver  Island.  Southward  from  Squitty 
the  Gulf  runs  in  a  thirty-mile  width  for  nearly  a  hun- 
dred miles  to  the  San  Juan  islands  in  American  waters, 
beyond  which  opens  the  sheltered  beauty  of  Puget 
Sound.  Squitty  is  six  miles  wide  and  ten  miles  long, 
a  blob  of  granite  covered  with  fir  and  cedar  forest,  with 
certain  parklike  patches  of  open  grassland  on  the 
southern  end,  and  a  hump  of  a  mountain  lifting  two 
thousand  feet  in  its  middle. 

The  southeastern  end  of  Squitty  —  barring  the  tide 
rips  off  Cape  Mudge  —  is  the  dirtiest  place  in  the  Gulf 
for  small  craft  in  blowy  weather.  The  surges  that 
heave  up  off  a  hundred  miles  of  sea  tortured  by  a 
southeast  gale  break  thunderously  against  Squitty's 
low  cliffs.  These  walls  face  the  marching  breakers 
with  a  grim,  unchanging  front.  There  is  nothing  hos- 
pitable in  this  aspect  of  Squitty.  It  is  an  ugly  shore 
to  have  on  the  lee  in  a  blow. 

Yet  it  is  not  so  forbidding  as  it  seems.  The  prevail- 
ing summer  winds  on  the  Gulf  are  westerly.  Gales  of 
uncommon  fierceness  roar  out  of  the  northwest  in  fall  and 
early  winter.    At  such  times  the  storms  split  on  Squitty 


HIS  OWN  COUNTRY  19 

Island,  leaving  a  restful  calm  under  those  brown,  kelp- 
fringed  cliffs.  Many  a  small  coaster  has  crept  thank- 
fully into  that  lee  out  of  the  wliitecapped  turmoil  on 
either  side,  to  lie  there  through  a  night  that  was  wild 
outside,  watching  the  Ballenas  light  twenty  miles  away 
on  a  pile  of  bare  rocks  winking  and  blinking  its  warning 
to  less  fortunate  craft.  Tugs,  fishing  boats,  salmon 
troUers,  beach-combing  launches,  all  that  mosquito  fleet 
which  gets  its  bread  upon  the  waters  and  learns  bar, 
shoal,  reef,  and  anchorage  thoroughly  in  the  getting, 
—  these  knew  that  besides  the  half-moon  bight  called 
Cradle  Bay,  upon  which  fronted  Horace  Gower's  sum- 
mer home,  there  opened  also  a  secure,  bottle-necked 
cove  less  than  a  mile  northward  from  Point  Old. 

By  day  a  stranger  could  only  mark  the  entrance  by 
eagle  watch  from  a  course  close  inshore.  By  night 
even  those  who  knew  the  place  as  they  knew  the 
palm  of  their  hand  had  to  feel  their  way  in.  But 
once  inside,  a  man  could  lie  down  in  his  bunk  and 
sleep  soundly,  though  a  southeaster  whistled  and 
moaned,  and  the  seas  roared  smoking  inlo  the  narrow 
mouth.  No  ripple  of  that  troubled  the  inside  of  Squitty 
Cove.  It  was  a  finger  of  the  sea  thrust  straight  into 
the  land,  a  finger  three  hundred  yards  long,  forty 
yards  wide,  with  an  entrance  so  narrow  that  a  man 
could  heave  a  sounding  lead  across  it,  and  that  entrance 
so  masked  by  a  rock  about  the  bigness  of  a  six-room 
house  that  one  holding  the  channel  could  touch  the 
rock  with  a  pike  pole  as  he  passed  in.  There  was  a 
mud  bottom,  twenty-foot  depth  at  low  tide,  and  a  little 
stream  of  cold  fresh  water  brawling  in  at  the  head.  A 
cliff  walled  it  on  the  south.  A  low,  grassy  hill  dotted 
with  solitary  firs,  red-barked  arbutus,  and  clumps  of 
wild  cherry  formed  its  northern  boundary.     And  all 


20  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

around  the  mouth,  in  every  nook  and  crevice,  driftwood 
of  every  size  and  shape  lay  in  great  heaps,  cast  high 
above  tidewater  by  the  big  storms. 

So  Squitty  had  the  three  prime  requisites  for  a  har- 
bor,—  secure  anchorage,  fresh  water,  and  firewood. 
There  was  good  fertile  land,  too,  behind  the  Cove, — 
low  valleys  that  ran  the  length  of  the  island.  There 
were  settlers  here  and  there,  but  these  settlers  were  not 
the  folk  who  intermittently  frequented  Squitty  Cove. 
The  settlers  stayed  on  their  land,  battling  with  stumps, 
clearing  away  the  ancient  forest,  tilling  the  soil.  Those 
to  whom  Squitty  Cove  gave  soundest  sleep  and  keenest 
joy  were  tillers  of  the  sea.  Off  Point  Old  a  rock  brown 
with  seaweed,  ringed  with  a  bed  of  kelp,  lifted  its  ugly 
head  now  to  the  one  good,  blue-gray  eye  of  Jack 
MacRae,  the  same  rock  upon  which  Donald  MacRae's 
sloop  broke  her  back  before  Jack  MacRae  was  bom. 
It  was  a  sunken  menace  at  any  stage  of  water,  heartily 
cursed  by  the  fishermen.  In  the  years  between,  the  rock 
had  acquired  a  name  not  written  on  the  Admiralty 
charts.  The  hydrographers  would  look  puzzled  and 
shake  their  heads  if  one  asked  where  in  the. Gulf  waters 
lay  Poor  Man's  Rock. 

But  Poor  Man's  Rock  it  is.  Greek  and  Japanese, 
Spaniard  and  Italian,  American  and  Canadian  —  and 
there  are  many  of  each  —  who  follow  the  silver-sided 
salmon  when  they  run  in  the  Gulf  of  Georgia,  these 
know  that  Poor  Man's  Rock  lies  half  a  cable  south 
southwest  of  Point  Old  on  Squitty  Island.  Most  of 
them  know,  too,  why  it  is  called  Poor  Man's  Rock. 

Under  certain  conditions  of  sea  and  sky  the  Rock  is 
as  lonely  and  forbidding  a  spot  as  ever  a  ship's  timbers 
were  broken  upon.  Point  Old  thrusts  out  like  the 
stubby  thumb  on  a  clenched  first.     The  Rock  and  the 


HIS  OWN  COUNTRY  21 

outer  nib  of  the  Point  are  haunted  by  quarreling 
flocks  of  gulls  and  coots  and  the  black  Siwash  duck  with 
his  stumpy  wings  and  brilliant  yellow  bill.  The  south- 
easter sends  endless  battalions  of  waves  rolling  up  there 
when  it  blows.  These  rear  white  heads  over  the  Rock 
and  burst  on  the  Point  with  shuddering  impact  and 
showers  of  spray.  When  the  sky  is  dull  and  gray,  and 
the  wind  whips  the  stunted  trees  on  the  Point  —  trees 
that  lean  inland  with  branches  all  twisted  to  the  land- 
ward side  from  pressure  of  many  gales  in  their  growing 
years  —  and  the  surf  is  booming  out  its  basso  har- 
monies, the  Rock  is  no  place  for  a  fisherman.  Even  the 
gulls  desert  it  then. 

But  in  good  weather,  in  the  season,  the  blueback 
and  spring  salmon  swim  in  vast  schools  across  the  end 
of  Squitty.  They  feed  upon  small  fish,  baby  herring, 
tiny  darting  atoms  of  finny  life  that  swarm  in  countless 
numbers.  What  these  inch-long  fishes  feed  upon  no 
man  knows,  but  they  begin  to  show  in  the  Gulf  early  in 
spring.  The  water  is  alive  with  them,  —  minute,  dart- 
ing streaks  of  silver.  The  salmon  follow  these  schools, 
pursuing,  swallowing,  eating  to  live.  Seal  and  dogfish 
follow  the  salmon.  Shark  and  the  giant  blackfish  follow 
dogfish  and  seal.  And  man  follows  them  all,  pursuing 
and  killing  that  he  himself  may  live. 

Around  Poor  Man's  Rock  the  tide  sets  strongly  at 
certain  stages  of  ebb  and  flood.  The  cliffs  north  of 
Point  Old  and  the  area  immediately  surrounding  the 
Rock  are  thick  strewn  with  kelp.  In  these  brown  patches 
of  seaweed  the  tiny  fish,  the  schools  of  baby  herring, 
take  refuge  from  their  restless  enemy,  the  swift  and 
voracious  salmon. 

For  years  Pacific  Coast  salmon  have  been  taken  by 
net  and  trap,  to  the  profit  of  the  salmon  packers  and 


22  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

the  satisfaction  of  those  who  cannot  get  fish  save  out 
of  tin  cans.  The  salmon  swarmed  in  millions  on  their 
way  to  spawn  in  fresh-water  streams.  They  were  plenti- 
ful and  cheap.  But  even  before  the  war  came  to  send 
the  price  of  linen-mesh  net  beyond  most  fishermen's 
pocketbooks,  men  had  discovered  that  salmon  could  be 
taken  commercially  by  trolling  lines.  The  lordly  spring, 
which  attains  to  seventy  pounds,  the  small,  swift  blue- 
back,  and  the  fighting  coho  could  all  be  lured  to  a  hook 
on  a  wobbling  bit  of  silver  or  brass  at  the  end  of  a  long 
line  weighted  with  lead  to  keep  it  at  a  certain  depth 
behind  a  moving  boat.  From  a  single  line  over  the 
stern  it  was  but  a  logical  step  to  two,  four,  even  six 
lines  spaced  on  slender  poles  boomed  out  on  each  side 
of  a  power  launch,  —  once  the  fisherman  learned  that 
with  this  gear  he  could  take  salmon  in  open  water.  So 
trolling  was  launched.  Odd  troUers  grew  to  trolling 
fleets.  A  new  method  became  estabhshed  in  the  salmon 
industry. 

But  there  are  places  where  the  salmon  run  and  a 
gasboat  trolling  her  battery  of  lines  cannot  go  without 
loss  of  gear.  The  power  boats  cannot  troll  in  shallows. 
iThey  cannot  operate  in  kelp  without  fouling.  So  they 
hold  to  deep  open  water  and  leave  the  kelp  and  shoals 
to  the  rowboats. 

And  that  is  how  Poor  Man's  Rock  got  its  name.  In 
the  kelp  that  surrounded  it  and  the  greater  beds  that 
fringed  Point  Old,  the  small  feed  sought  refuge  from  the 
salmon  and  the  salmon  pursued  them  there  among  the 
weedy  granite  and  the  boulders,  even  into  shallows 
where  their  back  fins  cleft  the  surface  as  they  dashed 
after  the  little  herring.  The  foul  ground  and  the  tidal 
currents  that  swept  by  the  Rock  held  no  danger  to  the 
gear  of  a  rowboat  troller.    He  fished  a  single  short  line 


HIS  OWN  COUNTRY  23 

with  a  pound  or  so  of  lead.  He  could  stop  dead  in  a 
boat  length  if  his  line  fouled.  So  he  pursued  the  salmon 
as  the  salmon  pursued  the  little  fish  among  the  kelp 
and  boulders. 

Only  a  poor  man  trolled  in  a  rowboat,  tugging  at 
the  oars  hour  after  hour  without  cabin  shelter  from 
wind  and  sun  and  rain,  unable  to  face  even  such  weather 
as  a  tliirty  by  eight-foot  gasboat  could  easily  fish  in, 
unable  to  follow  the  salmon  run  when  it  shifted  from 
one  point  to  another  on  the  Gulf.  The  rowboat  trollers 
must  pick  a  camp  ashore  by  a  likely  ground  and  stay 
there.  If  the  salmon  left  they  could  only  wait  till 
another  run  began.  Whereas  the  power  boat  could 
hear  of  schooling  salmon  forty  miles  away  and  be  on 
the  spot  in  seven  hours'  steaming. 

Poor  Man's  Rock  had  given  many  a  man  his  chance. 
Nearly  always  salmon  could  be  taken  there  by  a  row- 
boat.  And  because  for  many  years  old  men,  men  with  - 
lean  purses,  men  with  a  rowboat,  a  few  dollars,  and  a 
hunger  for  independence,  had  camped  in  Squitty  Cove 
and  fished  the  Squitty  headlands  and  seldom  failed  to 
take  salmon  around  the  Rock,  the  name  had  clung  to 
that  brown  hummock  of  granite  lifting  out  of  the  sea 
at  half  tide.  From  April  to  November,  any  day  a 
rowboat  could  live  outside  the  Cove,  there  would  be  half 
a  dozen,  eight,  ten,  more  or  less,  of  these  solitary  rowers 
bending  to  their  oars,  circling  the  Rock. 

Now  and  again  one  of  these  would  hastily  drop  his 
oars,  stand  up,  and  haul  in  his  line  hand  over  hand. 
There  would  be  a  splashing  and  splattering  on  the  sur- 
face, a  bright  silver  fish  leaping  and  threshing  the  water, 
to  land  at  last  with  a  plop !  in  the  boat.  Whereupon  the 
fisherman  would  hurriedly  strike  this  dynamic,  glisten- 
ing fish  over  the  head  with  a  short,  thick  club,  lest  his 


24  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

struggles  snarl  the  line,  after  which  he  would  put  out 
his  spoon  and  bend  to  the  oars  again.  It  was  a  day- 
light and  dusk  job,  a  matter  of  infinite  patience  and 
hard  work,  cold  and  wet  at  times,  and  in  midsummer 
the  blaze  of  a  scorching  sun  and  the  eye-dazzling  glitter 
of  reflected  light. 

But  a  man  must  live.  Some  who  came  to  the  Cove 
trolled  long  and  skillfully,  and  were  lucky  enough  to 
gain  a  power  troUer  in  the  end,  to  live  on  beans  and 
fish,  and  keep  a  strangle  hold  on  every  dollar  that  came 
in  until  with  a  cabin  boat  powered  with  gas-  they  j  oined 
the  trolling  fleet  and  became  nomads.  They  fared  well 
enough  then.  Their  taking  at  once  grew  beyond  a  row- 
boat's  scope.  They  could  see  new  country,  hearken  to 
the  lure  of  distant  fishing  grounds.  There  was  the 
sport  of  gambling  on  wind  and  weather,  on  the  price  of 
fish  or  the  number  of  the  catch.  If  one  locality  dis- 
pleased them  they  could  shift  to  another,  while  the  row- 
boat  men  were  chained  perforce  to  the  monotony  of  the 
same  camp,  the  same  cliffs,  the  same  old  weary  round. 

Sometimes  Squitty  Cove  harbored  thirty  or  forty  of 
these  power  t rollers.  They  would  make  their  night 
anchorage  there  while  the  trolling  held  good,  filling  the 
Cove  with  talk  and  laughter  and  a  fine  sprinkle  of  lights 
when  dark  closed  in.  With  failing  catches,  or  the  first 
breath  of  a  southeaster  that  would  lock  them  in  the 
Cove  while  it  blew,  they  would  be  up  and  away,  —  to 
the  top  end  of  Squitty,  to  Yellow  Rock,  to  Cape  Lazo, 
anywhere  that  salmon  might  be  found. 

And  the  rowboat  men  would  lie  in  their  tents  and 
split-cedar  lean-tos,  cursing  the  weather,  the  salmon 
that  would  not  bite,  grumbling  at  their  lot. 

There  were  two  or  three  rowboat  men  who  had  fished 
the  Cove  almost  since  Jack  MacRae  could  remember,  — 


HIS  OWN  COUNTRY  35 

old  men,  fishermen  who  had  shot  their  bolt,  who  dwelt 
in  small  cabins  by  the  Cove,  living  somehow  from  salmon 
run  to  salmon  run,  content  if  the  season's  catch  netted 
three  hundred  dollars.  All  they  could  hope  for  was  a 
living.    They  had  become  fixtures  there. 

Jack  MacRae  looked  down  from  the  bald  tip  of  Point 
Old  with  an  eager  gleam  in  his  uncovered  eye.  There 
was  the  Rock  with  a  slow  swell  lapping  over  it.  There 
was  an  old  withered  Portuguese  he  knew  in  a  green  dug- 
out. Long  Tom  Spence  rowing  behind  the  Portuguese, 
and  they  carrying  on  a  shouted  conversation.  He 
picked  out  Doug  Sproul  among  three  others  he  did  not 
know,  —  and  there  was  not  a  man  under  fifty  among 
them. 

Three  hundred  yards  offshore  half  a  dozen  power 
troUers  wheeled  and  counterwheeled,  working  an  eddy. 
He  could  see  them  haul  the  lines  hand  over  hand,  casting 
the  hooked  fish  up  into  the  hold  with  an  easy  swing. 
The  salmon  were  biting. 

It  was  all  familiar  to  Jack  MacRae.  He  knew 
every  nook  and  cranny  on  Squitty  Island,  every  phase 
and  mood  and  color  of  the  sea.  It  is  a  grim  birthplace 
that  leaves  a  man  without  some  sentiment  for  the  place 
where  he  was  bom.  Point  Old,  Squitty  Cove,  Poor 
Man's  Rock  had  been  the  boundaries  of  his  world  for  a 
long  time.  In  so  far  as  he  had  ever  played,  he  had 
played  there. 

He  looked  for  another  familiar  figure  or  two,  without 
noting  them. 

"The  fish  are  biting  fast  for  this  time  of  year,"  he 
reflected.  "  It 's  a  wonder  dad  and  Peter  Ferrara  are  n't 
out.  And  I  never  knew  Bill  Muriro  to  miss  anything 
like  this.'' 

He  looked  a  little  longer,  over  across  the  tip  of  Sang- 


26  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

ster  Island  two  miles  westward,  with  its  Elephant's 
Head,  —  the  extended  trunk  of  which  was  a  treacherous 
reef  bared  only  at  low  tide.  He  looked  at  the  Ele- 
phant's unwinking  eye,  which  was  a  twenty-foot  hole 
through  a  hump  of  sandstone,  and  smiled.  He  had 
fished  for  salmon  along  the  kelp  beds  there  and  dug 
clams  under  the  eye  of  the  Elephant  long,  long  ago.  It 
did  seem  a  long  time  ago  that  he  had  been  a  youngster 
in  overalls,  adventuring  alone  in  a  dugout  about  these 
bold  headlands. 

He  rose  at  last.  The  November  wind  chilled  him 
through  the  heavy  mackinaw.  He  looked  back  at  the 
Gower  cottage,  like  a  snowflake  in  a  setting  of  emerald ; 
he  looked  at  the  Gower  yacht;  and  the  puzzled  frown 
returned  to  his  face. 

Then  he  picked  up  his  bag  and  walked  rapidly  along 
the  brow  of  the  cliffs  toward  Squitty  Cove. 


CHAPTER   III 

The  Flutter  of  Sable  Wings 

A  PATH  took  form  on  the  mossy  rock  as  Jack  MacRae 
strode  on.  He  followed  this  over  patches  of  grass,  by 
lone  firs  and  small  thickets,  until  it  brought  him  out  on 
the  rim  of  the  Cove.  He  stood  a  second  on  the  cliffy 
north  wall  to  look  down  on  the  quiet  harbor.  It  was 
bare  of  craft,  save  that  upon  the  beach  two  or  three 
rowboats  lay  hauled  out.  On  the  farther  side  a  low, 
rambling  house  of  logs  showed  behind  a  clump  of  firs. 
Smoke  lifted  from  its  stone  chimney. 

MacRae  smiled  reminiscently  at  this  and  moved  on. 
Hisi  objective  lay  at  the  Cove's  head,  on  the  little  creek 
which  came  whispering  down  from  the  high  land  behind. 
He  gained  this  in  another  two  hundred  yards,  coming 
to  a  square  house  built,  like  its  neighbor,  of  stout  logs 
with  a  high-pitched  roof,  a  patch  of  ragged  grass  in 
front,  and  a  picket-fenced  area  at  the  back  in  which 
stood  apple  trees  and  cherry  and  plum,  gaunt-limbed 
trees  all  bare  of  leaf  and  fruit.  Ivy  wound  up  the 
comers  of  the  house.  Sturdy  rosebushes  stood  before  it, 
and  the  dead  vines  of  sweet  peas  bleached  on  their 
trellises. 

It  had  the  look  of  an  old  place  —  as  age  is  reckoned 
in  so  new  a  country  —  old  and  bearing  the  marks  of 
many  years'  labor  bestowed  to  make  it  what  it  was. 
Even  from  a  distance  it  bore  a  homelike  air.    MacRae's 


28  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

face  lightened  at  the  sight.  His  step  quickened.  He 
had  come  a  long  way  to  get  home. 

Across  the  front  of  the  house  extended  a  wide  porch 
which  gave  a  look  at  the  Cove  through  a  thin  screen  of 
maple  and  alder.  From  the  grass-bordered  walk  of 
beach  gravel  half  a  dozen  steps  lifted  to  the  floor  level. 
As  MacRae  set  foot  on  the  lower  step  a  girl  came  out 
on  the  porch. 

MacRae  stopped.  The  girl  did  not  see  him.  Her 
eyes  were  fixed  questioningly  on  the  sea  that  stretched 
away  beyond  the  narrow  mouth  of  the  Cove.  As  she 
looked  she  drew  one  hand  wearily  across  her  forehead, 
tucking  back  a  vagrant  strand  of  dusky  hair.  MacRae 
watched  her  a  moment.  The  quick,  pleased  smile  that 
leaped  to  his  face  faded  to  soberness. 

"  HeUo,  DoUy,"  he  said  softly. 

She  started.  Her  dark  eyes  turned  to  him,  and  an  in- 
expressible relief  glowed  in  them.  She  held  up  one  hand 
in  a  gesture  that  warned  silence,  —  and  by  that  time 
MacRae  had  come  up  the  steps  to  her  side  and  seized 
both  her  hands  in  his.  She  looked  at  him  speechlessly, 
a  curious  passivity  in  her  attitude.  He  saw  that  her 
eyes  were  wet. 

"What's  wrong,  Dolly?"  he  asked.  "Aren't  you 
glad  to  see  Johnny  come  marching  home?  Where's 
dad?  " 

"Glad?"  she  echoed.  "I  never  was  so  glad  to  see 
any  one  in  my  life.  Oh,  Johnny  MacRae,  I  wish  you  'd 
come  sooner.  Your  father 's  a  sick  man.  We  've  done 
our  best,  but  I  'm  afraid  it 's  not  good  enough." 

"He's  in  bed,  I  suppose,"  said  MacRae.  "Well, 
I  '11  go  in  and  see  him.  Maybe  it  '11  cheer  the  old  boy 
up  to  see  me  back." 

"He  won't  know  you,"   the  girl  murmured.     "You 


THE  FLUTTER  OF  SABLE  WINGS         29 

mustn't  disturb  him  just  now,  anyway.  He  has  fallen 
into  a  doze.  When  he  comes  out  of  that  he  '11  likely  be 
delirious." 

"  Good  Lord,"  MacRae  whispered,  "  as  bad  as  that ! 
What  is  it?" 

"The  flu,"  Dolly  said  quietly.  "Everybody  has 
been  having  it.  Old  Bill  Munro  died  in  his  shack  a 
week  ago." 

"Has  dad  had  a  doctor.?" 

The  girl  nodded. 

"  Harper  from  Nanaimo  came  day  before  yesterday. 
He  left  medicine  and  directions;  he  can't  come  again. 
He  has  more  cases  than  he  can  handle  over  there." 

They  went  through  the  front  door  into  a  big,  rudely 
furnished  room  with  a  very  old  and  worn  rug  on  the 
floor,  a  few  pieces  of  heavy  furniture,  and  bare,  uncur- 
tained windows.  A  heap  of  wood  blazed  in  an  open 
cobblestone  fireplace. 

MacRae  stopped  short  just  within  the  threshold. 
Through  a  door  slightly  ajar  came  the  sound  of  stertor- 
ous breathing,  intermittent  in  its  volume,  now  barely 
audible,  again  rising  to  a  labored  harshness.  He  lis- 
tened, a  look  of  dismayed  concern  gathering  on  his 
face.  He  had  heard  men  in  the  last  stages  of  exhaus- 
tion from  wounds  and  disease  breathe  in  that  horribly 
distressed  fashion. 

He  stood  a  while  uncertainly.  Then  he  laid  off  his 
mackinaw,  walked  softly  to  the  bedroom  door,  looked 
in.  After  a  minute  of  silent  watching  he  drew  back. 
The  girl  had  seated  herself  in  a  chair.  MacRae  sat 
down  facing  her. 

*'I  never  saw  dad  so  thin  and  old-looking,"  he  mut- 
tered. "  Why,  his  hair  is  nearly  white.  He  *s  a  wreck. 
How  long  has  he  been  sick?  " 


30  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

"Pour  days,"  Dolly  answered.  "But  he  hasn't 
grown  old  and  thin  in  four  days,  Jack.  He's  been 
going  downhill  for  months.  Too  much  work.  Too 
much  worry  also,  I  think  —  out  there  around  the  Rock 
every  morning  at  daylight,  every  evening  till  dark.  It 
has  n't  been  a  good  season  for  the  rowboats." 

MacRae  stirred  uneasily  in  his  chair.  He  did  n't  un- 
derstand why  his  father  should  have  to  drudge  in  a 
trolling  boat.  They  had  always  fished  salmon,  so  far 
back  as  he  could  recall,  but  never  of  stark  necessity. 
He  nursed  his  chin  in  his  hand  and  thought.  Mostly 
he  thought  with  a  constricted  feeling  in  his  throat  of 
how  frail  and  old  his  father  had  grown,  the  slow-smiling^ 
slow-speaking  man  who  had  been  father  and  mother 
and  chum  to  him  since  he  was  an  urchin  in  knee 
breeches.  He  recalled  him  at  their  parting  on  a  Van- 
couver railway  platform,  —  tall  and  rugged,  a  lean, 
muscular,  middle-aged  man,  bidding  his  son  a  restrained 
farewell  with  a  longing  look  in  his  eyes.  Now  he  was 
a  wasted  shadow.  Jack  MacRae  shivered.  He  seemed 
to  hear  the  sable  angel's  wing-beats  over  the  house. 

He  looked  up  at  the  girl  at  last. 

"You're  worn  out,  aren't  you,  Dolly.?"  he  said. 
"  Have  you  been  caring  for  him  alone  ?  " 

"Uncle  Peter  helped,"  she  answered.  "But  I've 
stayed  up  and  worried,  and  I  am  tired,  of  course.  It 
isn't  a  very  cheerful  home-coming,  is  it,  Jack?  And  he 
was  so  pleased  when  he  got  your  cable  from  London. 
Poor  old  man !  " 

MacRae  got  up  suddenly.  But  the  clatter  of  his 
shoes  on  the  floor  recalled  him  to  himself.  He  sat  down 
again. 

"I've  got  to  do  something,"  he  asserted. 

"  There  's  nothing  you  can  do,"  Dolly  Ferrara  said 


THE  FLUTTER  OF  SABLE  WINGS        31 

wistfully.  "  He  can't  be  moved.  You  can't  get  a  doctor 
or  a  nurse.  The  country  's  full  of  people  down  with  the 
flu.  There  's  only  one  chance  and  I  've  taken  that.  I 
wrote  a  message  to  Doctor  Laidlaw  —  you  remember  he 
used  to  come  here  every  summer  to  fish  —  and  Uncle 
Peter  went  across  to  Sechelt  to  wire  it.  I  think  he'll 
come  if  he  can,  or  send  some  one,  don't  you?  They 
were  such  good  friends." 

"That  was  a  good  idea,"  MacRae  nodded.  "Laid- 
law will  certainly  come  if  it's  possible." 

"  And  I  can  keep  cool  cloths  on  his  head  and  feed  him 
broth  and  give  him  the  stuff  Doctor  Harper  left.  He 
said  it  depended  mostly  on  his  own  resisting  power.  If 
he  could  throw  it  oiF  he  would.     If  not — " 

She  turned  her  palms  out  expressively. 

"How  did  you  come?"  she  asked  presently. 

*' Across  from  Qualicum  in  a  fish  carrier  to  Folly 
Bay.    I  borrowed  a  boat  at  the  Bay  and  rowed  up." 

"  You  must  be  hungry,'*  she  said.  "  I  '11  get  you 
something  to  eat." 

"  I  don't  feel  much  like  eating,"  —  MacRae  followed 
her  into  the  kitchen  —  "  but  I  can  drink  a  cup  of  tea." 

He  sat  on  a  comer  of  the  kitchen  table  while  she  busied 
herself  with  the  kettle  and  teapot,  marveling  that  in 
four  years  everything  should  apparently  remain  the 
same  and  still  suffer  such  grievous  change.  There  was 
an  air  of  forlomness  about  the  house  which  hurt  him. 
The  place  had  run  down,  as  the  sands  of  his  father's 
life  were  running  down.  Of  the  things  unchanged  the 
girl  he  watched  was  one.  Yet  as  he  looked  with  keener 
appraisal,  he  saw  that  Dolly  Ferrara  too  had  changed. 

Her  dusky  cloud  of  hair  was  as  of  old ;  her  wide,  dark 
eyes  still  mirrored  faithfully  every  shift  of  feeling,  and 
her  incomparable  creamy  skin  was  more  beautiful  than 


32  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

ever.  Moving,  she  had  lost  none  of  her  lithe  grace.  And 
though  she  had  met  him  as  if  it  had  been  only  yesterday 
they  parted,  still  there  was  a  difference  which  somehow 
eluded  him.  He  could  feel  it,  but  it  was  not  to  be  de- 
fined. It  struck  him  for  the  first  time  that  many  who 
had  never  seen  a  battlefield,  never  heard  a  screaming 
shell,  nor  shuddered  at  the  agony  of  a  dressing  station, 
might  still  have  suffered  by  and  of  and  through  the 
reactions  of  war. 

They  drank  their  tea  and  ate  a  slice  of  toast  in 
silence.  MacRae's  comrades  in  France  had  called  him 
"  Silent "  John,  because  of  his  lapses  into  concentrated 
thought,  his  habit  of  a  close  mouth  when  he  was  hurt 
or  troubled  or  uncertain.  One  of  the  things  for  which 
he  had  liked  Dolly  Ferrara  had  been  her  possession  of 
the  same  trait,  uncommon  in  a  girl.  She  could  sit  on 
the  cliffs  or  lie  with  him  in  a  rowboat  lifting  and  falling 
in  the  Gulf  swell,  staring  at  the  sea  and  the  sky  and  the 
wheeling  gulls,  dreaming  and  keeping  her  dreams  shyly 
to  herself,  —  as  he  did.  They  did  not  always  need 
words  for  understanding.  And  so  they  did  not  talk 
now  for  the  sake  of  talking,  pour  out  words  lest 
silence  bring  embarrassment.  Dolly  sat  resting  her 
chin  in  one  hand,  looking  at  him  impersonally,  yet  criti- 
cally, he  felt.  He  smoked  a  cigarette  and  held  his  peace 
until  the  labored  breathing  of  the  sick  man  changed  to 
disjointed,  muttering,  incoherent  fragments  of  speech. 

Dolly  went  to  him  at  once.  MacRae  lingered  to 
divest  himself  of  the  brown  overalls  so  that  he  stood 
forth  in  his  uniform,  the  R.  A.  F.  uniform  with  the  two 
black  wings  joined  to  a  circle  on  his  left  breast  and 
below  that  the  multicolored  ribbon  of  a  decoration. 
Then  he  went  in  to  his  father. 

Donald  MacRae  was  far  gone.     His  son  needed  no 


THE  FLUTTER  OF  SABLE  WINGS        33 

M.D.  to  tell  him  that.  He  burned  with  a  high  fever 
which  had  consumed  his  flesh  and  strength  in  its  furnace. 
His  eyes  gleamed  unnaturally,  with  no  light  of  recog- 
nition for  either  his  son  or  Dolly  Ferrara.  And  there 
was  a  peculiar  tinge  to  the  old  man's  lips  that  chilled 
young  MacRae,  the  mark  of  the  Spanish  flu  in  its  dead- 
liest manifestation.  It  made  him  ache  to  see  that  gray 
head  shift  from  side  to  side,  to  listen  to  the  incoherent 
babble,  to  mark  the  feeble  shiftings  of  the  nervous 
hands. 

For  a  terrible  half  hour  he  endured  the  sight  of  his 
father  struggling  for  breath,  being  racked  by  spasms  of 
coughing.  Then  the  reaction  came  and  the  sick  man 
slept,  —  not  a  healthy,  restful  sleep;  it  was  more  like 
the  dying  stupor  of  exhaustion.  Young  MacRae  knew 
that. 

He  knew  with  disturbing  certainty  that  without 
skilled  treatment  —  perhaps  even  in  spite  of  that  —  his 
father's  life  was  a  matter  of  hours.  Again  he  and  Dolly 
Ferrara  tiptoed  out  to  the  room  where  the  fire  glowed 
on  the  hearth.  MacRae  sat  thinking.  Dusk  was  com- 
ing on,  the  long  twilight  shortened  by  the  overcast  sky. 
MacRae  glowered  at  the  fire.  The  girl  watched  him 
expectantly. 

"  I  have  an  idea,"  he  said  at  last.  "  It 's  worth  try- 
ing." 

He  oj>ened  his  bag  and,  taking  out  the  wedge-shaped 
cap  of  the  birdmen,  set  it  on  his  head  and  went  out. 
He  took  the  same  path  he  had  followed  home.  On  top 
of  the  cliff  he  stopped  to  look  down  on  Squitty  Cove. 
In  a  camp  or  two  ashore  the  supper  fires  of  the  row- 
boat  trollers  were  burning.  Through  the  narrow  en- 
trance the  gasboats  were  chugging  in  to  anchorage,  one 
close  upon  the  heels  of  another. 


34  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

MacRae  considered  the  power  trollers.  He  shook  his 
head. 

"Too  slow,"  he  muttered.  "Too  small.  No  place 
to  lay  him  only  a  doghouse  cabin  and  a  fish  hold." 

He  strode  away  along  the  cliifs.  '  It  was  dark  now. 
But  he  had  ranged  all  that  end  of  Squitty  in  daylight 
and  dark,  in  sun  and  storm,  for  years,  and  the  old  in- 
stinctive sense  of  direction,  of  location,  had  not  deserted 
him.  In  a  little  while  he  came  out  abreast  of  Cradle 
Bay.  The  Gower  house,  aU  brightly  gleaming  windows, 
loomed  near.  He  struck  down  through  the  dead  fern, 
over  the  unfenced  lawn. 

Halfway  across  that  he  stopped.  A  piano  broke  out 
loudly.  Figures  flittered  by  the  windows,  gliding,  turn- 
ing. MacRae  hesitated.  He  had  come  reluctantly, 
driven  by  his  father's  great  need,  uneasily  conscious 
that  Donald  MacRae,  had  he  been  cognizant,  would 
have  forbidden  harshly  the  request  his  son  had  come  to 
make.  Jack  MacRae  had  the  feeling  that  his  father 
would  rather  die  than  have  him  ask  anything  of  Horace 
Gower. 

He  did  not  know  why.  He  had  never  been  told  why. 
All  he  knew  was  that  his  father  would  have  nothing  to 
do  with  Gower,  never  mentioned  the  name  voluntarily, 
let  his  catch  of  salmon  rot  on  the  beach  before  he  would 
sell  to  a  Gower  cannery  boat,  —  and  had  enj  oined  upon 
his  son  the  same  aloofness  from  all  things  Gower.  Once, 
in  answer  to  young  Jack's  curious  question,  his  natural 
"  why,"  Donald  MacRae  had  said : 

"  I  knew  the  man  long  before  you  were  bom,  Johnny. 
I  don't  like  him.  I  despise  him.  Neither  I  nor  any  of 
mine  shall  ever  truck  and  traffic  with  him  and  his. 
When  you  are  a  man  and  can  understand,  I  shall  tell 
you  more  of  this." 


THE  FLUTTER  OF  SABLE  WINGS    35 

But  he  had  never  told.  It  had  never  been  a  mooted 
point.  Jack  MacRae  knew  Horace  Gower  only  as  a 
short,  stout,  elderly  man  of  wealth  and  consequence,  a 
power  in  the  salmon  trade.  He  knew  a  little  more  of 
the  Gower  clan  now  than  he  did  before  the  war.  MacRae 
had  gone  overseas  with  the  Seventh  Battalion.  His 
company  commander  had  been  Horace  Gower's  son. 
Certain  aspects  of  that  young  man  had  not  heightened 
MacRae's  esteem  for  the  Gower  family.  Moreover,  he 
resented  this  elaborate  summer  home  of  Gower's  stand- 
ing on  land  he  had  always  known  to  be  theirs,  the 
MacRaes'.  That  puzzled  him,  as  well  as  affronted  his 
sense  of  ownership. 

But  these  things,  he  told  himself,  were  for  the  moment 
beside  the  point.  He  felt  his  father's  life  trembling  in 
the  balance.  He  wanted  to  see  affectionate,  prideful 
recognition  light  up  those  gray-blue  eyes  again,  even  if 
briefly.  He  had  come  six  thousand  miles  to  cheer  the 
old  man  with  a  sight  of  his  son,  a  son  who  had  been  a 
credit  to  him.  And  he  was  willing  to  pocket  pride,  to 
call  for  help  from  the  last  source  he  would  have  chosen, 
if  that  would  avail. 

He  crossed  the  lawn,  waited  a  few  seconds  till  the 
piano  ceased  its  syncopated  frenzy  and  the  dancers 
stopped. 

Betty  Gower  herself  opened  at  his  knock. 

"  Is  Mr.  Gower  here  ?  "  he  asked. 

"Yes.    Won't  you  come  in .? "  she  asked  courteously. 

The  door  opened  direct  into  a  great  living  room, 
from  the  oak  floor  of  which  the  rugs  had  been  rolled 
aside  for  dancing.  As  MacRae  came  in  out  of  the  murk 
along  the  cliffs,  his  one  good  eye  was  dazzled  at  first. 
Presently  he  made  out  a  dozen  or  more  persons  in  the 
room,  —  young  people  nearly  all.    They  were  standing 


36  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

and  sitting  about.  One  or  two  were  in  khaki  —  officers. 
There  seemed  to  be  an  abrupt  cessation  of  chatter  and 
laughing  at  his  entrance.  It  did  not  occur  to  him  at 
once  that  these  people  might  be  avidly  curious  about  a 
strange  young  man  in  the  uniform  of  the  Flying  Corps. 
He  apprehended  that  curiosity,  though,  poHtely  veiled 
as  it  was.  In  the  same  glance  he  became  aware  of  a 
middle-aged  woman  sitting  on  a  couch  by  the  fire.  Her 
hair  was  pure  white,  elaborately  arranged,  her  eyes 
were  a  pale  blue,  her  skin  very  delicate  and  clear.  Her 
face  somehow  reminded  Jack  MacRae  of  a  faded  rose 
leaf. 

In  a  deep  armchair  near  her  sat  Horace  Gower.  A 
young  man,  a  very  young  man,  in  evening  clothes,  hold- 
ing a  long  cigarette  daintily  in  his  fingers,  stood  by 
Gower. 

MacRae  followed  Betty  Gower  across  the  room  to 
her  father.  She  turned.  Her  quick  eyes  had  picked  out 
the  insignia  of  rank  on  MacRae's  uniform. 

"  Papa,"   she  said.     "  Captain  "   she  hesitated, 

"  MacRae,"  he  supplied. 

*'  Captain  MacRae  wishes  to  see  you." 

MacRae  wished  no  conventionalities.  He  did  not  want 
to  be  introduced,  to  be  shaken  by  the  hand,  to  have 
Gower  play  host.  He  forestalled  all  this,  if  indeed  it 
threatened. 

"  I  have  just  arrived  home  on  leave,"  he  said  briefly. 
"I  find  my  father  desperately  ill  in  our  house  at  the 
Cove.  You  have  a  very  fast  and  able  cruiser.  Would 
you  care  to  put  her  at  my  disposal  so  that  I  may  take 
my  father  to  Vancouver?  I  think  that  is  his  only 
chance." 

Gower  had  risen.  He  was  not  an  imposing  man.  At 
his  first  glimpse  of  MacRae's  face,  the  pink-patched  eye. 


THE  FLUTTER  OF  SABLE  WINGS        37 

the  uniform,  he  flushed  slightly,  —  recalling  that  after- 
noon. 

"  I  'm  sorry,"  he  said.  "  You  'd  be  welcome  to  the 
Arrow  if  she  were  here.  But  I  sent  her  to  Nanaimo  an 
hour  after  she  landed  us.  Are  you  Donald  MacRae's 
boy.?" 

"  Yes,"  MacRae  said.    "  Thank  you.    That 's  all." 

He  had  said  his  say  and  got  his  answer.  He  turned 
to  go.    Betty  Gower  put  a  detaining  hand  on  his  arm. 

"Listen,"  she  put  in  eagerly.  "Is  there  anything 
any  of  us  could  do  to  help.''  Nursing  or — or  any- 
thing? " 

MacRae  shook  his  head. 

"  There  is  a  girl  with  him,"  he  answered.  "  Nothing 
but  skilled  medical  aid  would  help  him  at  this  stage.  He 
has  the  flu,  and  the  fever  is  burning  his  life  out." 

"  The  flu,  did  you  say.?  "  The  young  man  with  the 
long  cigarette  lost  his  bored  air.  "Hang  it,  it  isn't 
very  sporting,  is  it,  to  expose  us  —  these  ladies  —  to 
the  infection.?     I'll  say  it  isn't." 

Jack  MacRae  fixed  the  young  man  —  and  he  was  not, 
after  all,  much  younger  than  MacRae  —  with  a  steady 
stare  in  which  a  smoldering  fire  glowed.  He  bestowed 
a  scrutiny  while  one  might  count  five,  under  which  the 
other's  gaze  began  to  shift  uneasily.  A  constrained 
silence  fell  in  the  room. 

"I  would  suggest  that  you  learn  how  to  put  on  a 
gas  mask,"  MacRae  said  coldly,  at  last. 

Then  he  walked  out.  Betty  Gower  followed  him  to  the 
door,  but  he  had  asked  his  question  and  there  was  noth- 
ing to  wait  for.  He  did  not  even  look  back  until  he 
reached  the  cliff.  He  did  not  care  if  they  thought  him 
rude,  ill-bred.  Then,  as  he  reached  the  cliff,  the  joyous 
jazz  broke  out  again  and  shadows  of  dancing  couples 


38  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

flitted  by  the  windows.     MacRae  looked  once  and  went 
on,  moody  because  chance  had  decreed  that  he  should 

fan. 

When  a  ruddy  dawn  broke  through  the  gray  cloud 
battahons  Jack  MacRae  sat  on  a  chair  before  the  fire- 
place in  the  front  room,  his  elbows  on  his  knees,  his 
chin  in  his  cupped  palms.  He  had  been  sitting  like  that 
for  two  hours.  The  fir  logs  had  wasted  away  to  a  pile 
of  white  ash  spotted  with  dying  coals.  MacRae  sat 
heedless  that  the  room  was  growing  cold. 

He  did  not  even  lift  his  head  at  the  sound  of  heavy 
footsteps  on  the  porch.  He  did  not  move  until  a  voice 
at  the  door  spoke  his  name  in  accents  of  surprise. 

"  Is  that  you,  yourself,  Johnny  MacRae  ?  " 

The  voice  was  deep  and  husky  and  kind,  and  it  was 
not  native  to  Squitty  Cove.  MacRae  lifted  his  head  to 
see  his  father's  friend  and  his  own.  Doctor  Laidlaw, 
physician  and  fisherman,  bulking  large.  And  beyond 
the  doctor  he  saw  a  big  white  launch  at  anchor  inside 
the  Cove. 

"Yes,"    MacRae  said. 

"  How 's  your  father?  '*  Laidlaw  asked.  "  That  wire 
worried  me.     I  made  the  best  time  I  could." 

"He's  dead,"  MacRae  answered  evenly.  "He  died 
at  midnight." 


CHAPTER  IV 

Inheeitance 

On  a  morning  four  days  later  Jack  MacRae  sat  staring 
into  the  coals  on  the  hearth.  It  was  all  over  and  done 
with,  the  house  empty  and  still,  Dolly  Ferrara  gone 
back  to  her  uncle's  home.  Even  the  Cove  was  bare  of 
fishing  craft.  He  was  alone  under  his  own  rooftree, 
alone  with  an  oppressive  silence  and  his  own  thoughts. 

These  were  not  particularly  pleasant  thoughts.  There 
was  nothing  mawkish  about  Jack  MacRae.  He  had  never 
been  taught  to  shrink  from  the  inescapable  facts  of  ex- 
istence. Even  if  he  had,  the  war  would  have  cured  him 
of  that  weakness.  As  it  was,  twelve  months  in  the 
infantry,  nearly  three  years  in  the  air,  had  taught  him 
that  death  is  a  commonplace  after  a  man  sees  about 
so  much  of  it,  that  it  is  many  times  a  welcome  relief 
from  suffering  either  of  the  body  or  the  spirit.  He 
chose  to  believe  that  it  had  proved  so  to  his  father. 
So  his  feelings  were  not  that  strange  mixture  of  grief 
and  protest  which  seizes  upon  those  to  whom  death  is  the 
ultimate  tragedy,  the  irrevocable  disaster,  when  it  falls 
upon  some  one  near  and  dear. 

No,  Jack  MacRae,  brooding  by  his  fire,  was  lonely 
and  saddened  and  heavy-hearted.  But  beneath  these 
neutral  phases  there  was  slowly  gathering  a  flood  of 
feeling  unrelated  to  his  father's  death,  more  directly 
based  indeed  upon  Donald  MacRae's  life,  upon  matters 
but  now  revealed  to  him,  which  had  their  root  in  thai 


40  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

misty  period  when  his  father  was  a  young  man  like 
himself. 

On  the  table  beside  him  lay  an  inch-thick  pile  of  note 
paper  all  closely  written  upon  in  the  clear,  small  pen- 
script  of  his  father. 

My  son:  [MacRae  had  written]  I  have  a  feeling 
lately  that  I  may  never  see  you  again.  Not  that  I  fear 
you  will  be  killed.  I  no  longer  have  that  fear.  I  seem 
to  have  an  unaccountable  assurance  that  having  come 
through  so  much  you  will  go  on  safely  to  the  end.  But 
I'm  not  so  sure  about  myself.  I'm  aging  too  fast. 
I  've  been  told  my  heart  is  bad.  And  I  've  lost  heart 
lately.  Things  have  gone  against  me.  There  is  noth- 
ing new  in  that.  For  thirty  years  I've  been  losing  out 
to  a  greater  or  less  extent  in  most  of  the  things  I  under- 
took—  that  is,  the  important  things. 

Perhaps  I  did  n't  bring  the  energy  and  feverish  am- 
bition I  might  have  to  my  undertakings.  Until  you 
began  to  grow  up  I  accepted  things  more  or  less  pas- 
sively as  I  found  them. 

Until  you  have  a  son  of  your  own,  until  you  observe 
closely  other  men  and  their  sons,  my  boy,  you  will 
scarcely  realize  how  close  we  two  have  been  to  each 
other.  We've  been  what  they  call  good  chums.  I've 
taken  a  secret  pride  in  seeing  you  grow  and  develop 
into  a  man.  And  while  I  tried  to  give  you  an  educa- 
tion—  broken  into,  alas,  by  this  unending  war  —  such 
as  would  enable  you  to  hold  your  own  in  a  world  which 
deals  harshly  with  the  ignorant,  the  incompetent,  the 
untrained,  it  was  also  my  hope  to  pass  on  to  you  some- 
thing of  material  value. 

This  land  which  runs  across  Squitty  Island  from  the 
Cove  to  Cradle  Bay  and  extending  a  mile  back  —  in  all 
a  trifle  over  six  hundred  acres  —  was  to  be  your  inher- 
itance. You  were  bom  here.  I  know  that  no  other 
place  means  quite  so  much  to  you  as  this  old  log  house 


INHERITANCE  41 

with  the  meadow  behind  it,  and  the  woods,  and  the  sea 
grumbling  always  at  our  doorstep.  Long  ago  this  place 
came  into  my  hands  at  little  more  cost  than  the  taking. 
It  has  proved  a  refuge  to  me,  a  stronghold  against  all 
comers,  against  all  misfortune.  I  have  spent  much  labor 
on  it,  and  most  of  it  has  been  a  labor  of  love.  It  has 
begun  to  grow  valuable.  In  years  to  come  it  will  be  of 
far  greater  value.  I  had  hoped  to  pass  it  on  to  you  in- 
tact, unencumbered,  an  inheritance  of  some  worth. 
Land,  you  will  eventually  discover,  Johnny,  is  the  basis 
of  everything.  A  man  may  make  a  fortune  in  industry, 
in  the  market.  He  turns  to  land  for  permanence,  sta- 
bility. All  that  is  sterling  in  our  civilization  has  its 
foundation  in  the  soil. 

Out  of  this  land  of  ours,  which  I  have  partially  and 
half-heartedly  reclaimed  from  the  wUdemess,  you  should 
derive  a  comfortable  livelihood,  and  your  children  after 
you. 

But  I  am  afraid  I  must  forego  that  dream  and  you, 
my  son,  your  inheritance.  It  has  slipped  away  from 
me.  How  this  has  come  about  I  wish  to  make  clear  to 
you,  so  that  you  will  not  feel  unkindly  toward  me  that 
you  must  face  the  world  with  no  resources  beyond  your 
own  brain  and  a  sound  young  body.  If  it  happens  that 
the  war  ends  soon  and  you  come  home  while  I  am  still 
aUve  to  welcome  you,  we  can  talk  this  over  man  to 
man.  But,  as  I  said,  my  heart  is  bad.  I  may  not  be 
here.  So  I  am  writing  all  this  for  you  to  read.  There 
are  many  things  which  you  should  know  —  or  at  least 
which  I  should  like  you  to  know. 

Thirty  years  ago  — 

Donald  MacRae's  real  communication  to  his  son  began 
at  that  point  in  the  long  ago  when  the  Gtdl  outsailed 
his  sloop  and  young  Horace  Gower,  smarting  with  jeal- 
ousy, struck  that  savage  blow  with  a  pike  pole  at  a  man 
whose  fighting  hands  were  tied  by  a  promise.     Bit  by 


42  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

bit,  incident  by  incident,  old  Donald  traced  out  of  a  full 
heart  and  bitter  memories  all  the  passing  years  for  his 
son  to  see  and  understand.  He  made  Elizabeth  Morton, 
the  Morton  family,  Horace  Gower  and  the  Gower  kin 
stand  out  in  bold  relief.  He  told  how  he,  Donald 
MacRae,  a  nobody  from  nowhere,  for  all  they  knew,  ad- 
venturing upon  the  Pacific  Coast,  questing  carelessly 
after  fortune,  had  fallen  in  love  with  this  girl  whose 
family,  with  less  consideration  for  her  feelings  and  de^ 
sires  than  for  mutual  advantages  of  land  and  money 
and  power,  favored  young  Gower  and  saw  nothing  but 
impudent  presumption  in  MacRae. 

Young  Jack  sat  staring  into  the  coals,  seeing  much, 
understanding  more.  It  was  aU  there  in  those  written 
pages,  a  powerful  spur  to  a  vivid  imagination. 

No  MacRae  had  ever  lain  down  unwhipped.  Nor  had 
Donald  MacRae,  his  father.  Before  his  bruised  face 
had  healed  —  and  young  Jack  remembered  well  the  thin 
white  scar  that  crossed  his  father's  cheek  bone  — 
Donald  MacRae  was  again  pursuing  his  heart's  desire. 
But  he  was  forestalled  there.  He  had  truly  said  to 
Elizabeth  Morton  that  she  would  never  have  another 
chance.  By  force  or  persuasion  or  whatsoever  means 
were  necessary  they  had  married  her  out  of  hand  to 
Horace  Gower. 

"That  must  have  been  she  sitting  on  the  couch," 
Jack  MacRae  whispered  to  himself,  "  that  middle-aged 
woman  with  the  faded  rose-leaf  face.  Lord,  Lord,  how 
things  get  twisted!" 

Though  they  so  closed  the  avenue  to  a  mesalliance, 
still  their  pride  must  have  smarted  because  of  that 
clandestine  affection,  that  boldly  attempted  elopement. 
Most  of  all,  young  Gower  must  have  hated  MacRae  — 
with  almost  the  same  jealous   intensity  that  Donald 


INHERITANCE  43 

MacRae  must  for  a  time  have  hated  him  —  because 
Gower  apparently  never  forgot  and  never  forgave. 
Long  after  Donald  MacRae  outgrew  that  passion 
Gower  had  continued  secretly  to  harass  him.  Certain 
things  could  not  be  otherwise  accounted  for,  Donald 
MacRae  wrote  to  his  son.  Gower  functioned  in  the 
salmon  trade,  in  timber,  in  politics.  In  whatever 
MacRae  set  on  foot,  he  ultimately  discerned  the  hand 
of  Gower,  implacable,  hidden,  striking  at  him  from 
under  cover. 

And  so  in  a  land  and  during  a  period  when  men 
created  fortunes  easily  out  of  nothing,  or  walked  care- 
lessly over  golden  opportunities,  Donald  MacRae  got 
him  no  great  store  of  worldly  goods,  whereas  Horace 
Gower,  after  one  venture  in  which  he  speedily  dissipated 
an  inherited  fortune,  drove  straight  to  successful  out- 
come in  everything  he  touched.  By  the  time  young 
Jack  MacRae  outgrew  the  Island  teachers  and  must  go 
to  Vancouver  for  high  school  and  then  to  the  University, 
of  British  Columbia,  old  Donald  had  been  compelled  to 
borrow  money  on  his  land  to  meet  these  expenses. 

Young  Jack,  sitting  by  the  fire,  *winced  when  he 
thought  of  that.  He  had  taken  things  for  granted. 
The  war  had  come  in  his  second  year  at  the  univer- 
sity,—  and  he  had  gone  to  the  front  as  a  matter  of 
course. 

Failing  fish  prices,  poor  seasons,  other  minor  dis- 
asters had  followed, — and  always  in  the  background, 
as  old  Donald  saw  it,  the  Gower  influence,  malign,  vin- 
dictive, harboring  that  ancient  grudge. 

Whereas  in  the  beginning  IMacRae  had  confidently 
expected  by  one  resource  and  another  to  meet  easily 
the  obligation  he  had  incurred,  the  end  of  it  was  the  loss, 
during  the  second  year  of  the  war,  of  all  the  MacRae 


44  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

lands  on  Squitty,  —  all  but  a  rocky  comer  of  a  few 
acres  which  included  the  house  and  garden.  Old  Donald 
had  segregated  that  from  his  holdings  when  he  pledged 
the  land,  as  a  matter  of  sentiment,  not  of  value.  All 
the  rest  —  acres  of  pasture,  cleared  and  grassed, 
stretches  of  fertile  ground,  blocks  of  noble  timber  still 
uncut  —  had  passed  through  the  hands  of  mortgage 
holders,  through  bank  transfers,  by  devious  and  tortu- 
ous ways,  until  the  title  rested  in  Horace  Gower,  —  who 
had  promptly  built  the  showy  summer  house  on  Cradle 
Bay  to  flaunt  in  his  face,  so  old  Donald  believed  and 
told  his  son. 

It  was  a  curious  document,  and  it  made  a  profound 
impression  on  Jack  MacRae.  He  passed  over  the  under- 
lying motive,  a  man  justifying  himself  to  his  son  for  a 
failure  which  needed  no  justifying.  He  saw  now  why 
his  father  tabooed  all  things  Gower,  why  indeed  he  must 
have  hated  Gower  as  a  man  who  does  things  in  the  open 
hates  an  enemy  who  strikes  only  from  cover. 

Strangely  enough.  Jack  managed  to  grasp  the  full 
measure  of  what  his  father's  love  for  Elizabeth  Morton 
must  have  been  without  resenting  the  secondary  part 
his  mother  must  have  played.  For  old  Donald  was 
frank  in  his  story.  He  made  it  clear  that  he  had  loved 
Bessie  Morton  with  an  all-consuming  passion,  and  that 
when  this  burned  itself  out  he  had  never  experienced  so 
headlong  an  affection  again.  He  spoke  with  kindly  re- 
gard for  his'  wife,  but  she  played  little  or  no  part  in  his 
account.  And  Jack  had  only  a  faint  memory  of  his 
mother,  for  she  had  died  when  he  was  seven.  His  father 
filled  his  eyes.  His  father's  enemies  were  his.  Family 
ties^  superimposed  on  clan  clannishness,  which  is  the 
blood  heritage  of  the  Highland  Scotch,  made  it  impossi- 
ble for  him  to  feel  otherwise.     That  blow  with  a  pike 


INHERITANCE  45 

pole  was  a  blow  directed  at  his  own  face.  He  took  up  his 
father's  feud  instinctively,  not  even  stopping  to  consider 
whether  that  was  his  father's  wish  or  intent. 

He  got  up  out  of  his  chair  at  last  and  went  outside, 
down  to  where  the  Cove  waters,  on  a  rising  tide,  lapped 
at  the  front  of  a  rude  shed.  Under  this  shed,  secure 
on  a  row  of  keel-blocks,  rested  a  small  knockabout- 
rigged  boat,  stowed  away  from  wind  and  weather,  her 
single  mast,  boom,  and  gaff  unshipped  and  slung  to 
rafters,  her  sail  and  running  gear  folded  and  coiled  and 
hung  beyond  the  wood-rats'  teeth.  Beside  this  sailing 
craft  lay  a  long  blue  dugout,  also  on  blocks,  half  filled 
with  water  to  keep  it  from  checking. 

These  things  belonged  to  him.  He  had  left  them 
lying  about  when  he  went  away  to  France.  And  old 
Donald  had  put  them  here  safely  against  his  return. 
Jack  stared  at  them,  blinking.  He  was  full  of  a  dumb 
protest.  It  didn't  seem  right.  Nothing  seemed  right. 
In  young  MacRae's  mind  there  was  nothing  terrible 
about  death.  He  had  become  used  to  that.  But  he  had 
imagination.  He  could  see  his  father  going  on  day  after 
day,  month  after  month,  year  after  year,  enduring, 
uncomplaining.  Gauged  by  what  his  father  had  written, 
by  what  Dolly  Ferrara  had  supplied  when  he  questioned 
her,  these  last  months  must  have  been  gray  indeed. 
And  he  had  died  without  hope  or  comfort  or  a  sight 
of  his  son. 

That  was  what  made  young  MacRae  blink  and  strug- 
gle with  a  lump  in  his  throat.    It  hurt. 

He  walked  away  around  the  end  of  the  Cove  without 
definite  objective.  He  was  suddenly  restless,  seeking 
relief  in  movement.  Sitting  still  and  thinking  had  be- 
come unbearable.  He  found  himself  on  the  path  that 
ran  along  the  cliffs  and  followed  that,  coming  out  at 


46  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

last  on  the  neck  of  Point  Old  where  he  could  look  down 
on  the  broken  water  that  marked  Poor  Man's  Rock. 

The  lowering  cloud  bank  of  his  home-coming  day  had 
broken  in  heavy  rain.  That  had  poured  itself  out  and 
given  place  to  a  southeaster.  The  wind  was  gone  now, 
the  clouds  breaking  up  into  white  drifting  patches  with 
bits  of  blue  showing  between,  and  the  sun  striking 
through  in  yellow  shafts  which  lay  glittering  areas  here 
and  there  on  the  Gulf.  The  swell  that  runs  after  a  blow 
still  thundered  all  along  the  southeast  face  of  Squitty, 
bursting  hoom  —  boom  —  boom  against  the  cliffs,  shoot- 
ing spray  in  white  cascades.  Over  the  Rock  the  sea 
boiled. 

There  were  two  rowboats  trolling  outside  the  heavy 
backwash  from  the  cliffs.  MacRae  knew  them  both. 
Peter  Ferrara  was  in  one,  Long  Tom  Spence  in  the  other. 
They  did  not  ride  those  gray-green  ridges  for  pleasure, 
nor  drop  sidling  into  those  deep  watery  hollows  for  joy 
of  motion.  They  were  out  for  fish,  which  meant  to  them 
food  and  clothing.     That  was  their  work. 

They  were  the  only  fisher  folk  abroad  that  morning. 
The  gasboat  men  had  flitted  to  more  sheltered  grounds. 
MacRae  watched  these  two  lift  and  fall  in  the  marching 
swells.  It  was  cold.  Winter  sharpened  his  teeth 
already.  The  rowers  bent  to  their  oars,  tossing  and 
lurching.  MacRae  reflected  upon  their  industry.  In 
France  he  had  eaten  canned  salmon  bearing  the  Folly 
Bay  label,  salmon  that  might  have  been  taken  here  by 
the  Rock,  perhaps  by  the  hands  of  these  very  men,  by 
his  own  father.  Still,  that  was  unlikely.  Donald 
MacRae  had  never  sold  a  fish  to  a  Gower  collector. 
Nor  would  he  himself,  young  MacRae  swore  under  his 
breath,  looking  sullenly  down  upon  the  Rock. 

Day  after  day,  month  after  month,  his  father  had 


INHERITANCE  47 

tugged  at  the  oars,  hauled  on  the  line,  rowing  around 
and  around  Poor  Man's  Rock,  skirting  the  kelp  at  the 
cliff's  foot,  keeping  body  and  soul  together  with  un- 
remitting labor  in  sun  and  wind  and  rain,  trying  to  live 
and  save  that  little  heritage  of  land  for  his  son. 

Jack  MacRae  sat  down  on  a  rock  beside  a  bush  and 
thought  about  this  sadly.  He  could  have  saved  his  father 
much  if  he  had  known.  He  could  have  assigned  his  pay. 
There  was  a  government  allowance.  He  could  have  in- 
voked the  War  Relief  Act  against  foreclosure.  Between 
them  they  could  have  managed.  But  he  understood 
quite  clearly  why  his  father  made  no  mention  of  his 
difficulties.  He  would  have  done  the  same  under  the 
same  circumstances  himself,  played  the  game  to  its 
bitter  end  without  a  cry. 

But  Donald  MacRae  had  made  a  long,  hard  fight 
only  to  lose  in  the  end,  and  his  son,  with  full  knowledge 
of  the  loneliness  and  discouragement  and  final  hopeless- 
ness that  had  been  his  father's  lot,  w£ls  passing  slowly 
from  sadness  to  a  cumulative  anger.  That  cottage  amid 
its  green  grounds  bright  in  a  patch  of  sunshine  did  not 
help  to  soften  him.  It  stood  on  land  reclaimed  from 
the  forest  by  his  father's  labor.  It  should  have  be- 
longed to  him,  and  it  had  passed  into  hands  that  already 
grasped  too  much.  For  thirty  years  Gower  had  made 
silent  war  on  Donald  MacRae  because  of  a  woman.  It 
seemed  incredible  that  a  grudge  bom  of  jealousy 
should  run  so  deep,  endure  so  long.  But  there  were 
the  facts.  Jack  MacRae  accepted  them;  he  could  not 
do  otherwise.  He  came  of  a  breed  which  has  handed 
its  feuds  from  generation  to  generation,  interpreting 
literally  the  code  of  an  eye  for  an  eye. 

So  that  as  he  sat  there  brooding,  it  was  perhaps  a 
little  unfortunate  that  the  daughter  of  a  man  whom 


48  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

he  was  beginning  to  regard  as  a  forthright  enemy 
should  have  chosen  to  come  to  him,  tripping  sound- 
lessly over  the  moss. 

He  did  not  hear  Betty  Gower  until  she  was  beside 
him.  Her  foot  clicked  on  a  stone  and  he  looked  up. 
Betty  was  all  in  white,  a  glow  in  her  cheeks  and  in  her 
eyes,  bareheaded,  her  reddish-brown  hair  shining  in  a 
smooth  roll  above  her  ears. 

"  I  hear  you  have  lost  your  father,"  she  said  simply. 
"I'm  awfully  sorry." 

Some  peculiar  quality  of  sympathy  in  her  tone 
touched  MacRae  deeply.  His  eyes  shifted  for  a 
moment  to  the  uneasy  sea.  The  lump  in  his  throat 
troubled  him  again.     Then  he  faced  her  again. 

"Thanks,"  he  said  slowly.  "I  dare  say  you  mean 
it,  although  I  don't  know  why  you  should.  But  I  'd 
rather  not  talk  about  that.    It 's  done." 

"I  suppose  that^s  the  best  way,"  she  agreed,  al- 
though she  gave  him  a  doubtful  sort  of  glance,  as  if  she 
scarcely  knew  how  to  take  part  of  what  he  said.  "  Is  n't 
it  lovely  after  the  storm?  Pretty  much  all  the  civilized 
world  must  feel  a  sort  of  brightness  and  sunshine  to-day, 
I  imagine." 

"Why.'^"  he  asked.  It  seemed  to  him  a  most  un- 
called-for optimism. 

"Why,  haven't  you  heard  that  the  war  is  over.'*" 
she  smiled.    "  Surely  some  one  has  told  you.'' " 

He  shook  his  head. 

"It  is  a  fact,"  she  declared.  "The  armistice  was 
signed  yesterday  at  eleven.     Aren't  you  glad?" 

MacRae  reflected  a  second.  A  week  earlier  he  would 
have  thrown  up  his  cap  and  whooped.  Now  the  tre- 
mendously important  happening  left  him  unmoved, 
unbelievably  indifferent.     He  was  not  stirred  at  all  by 


INHERITANCE  49 

the  fact  of  acknowledged  victory,  of  cessation  from 
killing. 

"I  should  be,  I  suppose,"  he  muttered.  "I  know 
a  lot  of  fellows  will  be  —  and  their  people.  So  far  as 
I  'm  concerned  —  right  now  —  " 

He  made  a  quick  gesture  with  his  hands.  He  could  n't 
explain  how  he  felt  —  that  the  war  had  suddenly  and 
imperiously  been  relegated  to  the  background  for  him. 
Temporarily  or  otherwise,  as  a  spur  to  his  emotions, 
the  war  had  ceased  to  function.  He  didn't  want  to 
talk.    He  wanted  to  be  let  alone,  to  think. 

Yet  he  was  conscious  of  a  wish  not  to  offend,  to  be 
courteous  to  this  clear-eyed  young  woman  who  looked 
at  him  with  frank  interest.  He  wondered  why  he  should 
be  of  any  interest  to  her.  MacRae  had  never  been  shy. 
Shyness  is  nearly  always  bom  of  acute  self-conscious- 
ness. Being  free  from  that  awkward  intuming  of  the 
mind  Jack  MacRae  was  not  thoroughly  aware  of  him- 
self as  a  likable  figure  in  any  girl's  sight.  Four  years 
overseas  had  set  a  mark  on  many  such  as  himself.  A 
man  cannot  live  through  manifold  chances  of  death, 
face  great  perils,  do  his  work  under  desperate  risks 
and  survive,  without  some  trace  of  his  deeds  being 
manifest  in  his  bearing.  Those  tried  by  fire  are  sure  of 
themselves,  and  it  shows  in  their  eyes.  Besides,  Jack 
MacRae  was  twenty-four,  clear-skinned,  vigorous, 
straight  as  a  young  fir  tree,  a  handsome  boy  in  uni- 
form. But  he  was  not  quick  to  apprehend  that  these 
things  stirred  a  girl's  fancy,  nor  did  he  know  that  the 
gloomy  something  which  clouded  his  eyes  made  Betty 
Gower  want  to  comfort  him. 

"I  think  I  understand,"  she  said  evenly,  —  when  in 
truth  she  did  not  understand  at  all.  "  But  after  a  while 
you'll  be  glad.     I  know  I  should  be  if  I  were  in  the 


50  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

army,  although  of  course  no  matter  how  horrible  it  all 
was  it  had  to  be  done.  For  a  long  time  I  wanted  to 
go  to  France  myself,  to  do  something.  I  was  simply 
wild  to  go.     But  they  wouldn't  let  me." 

"And  I,"  MacRae  said  slowly,  "didn't  want  to  go 
at  all  —  and  I  had  to  go." 

"  Oh,"  she  remarked  with  a  peculiar  interrogative 
inflection.  Her  eyebrows  lifted.  "Why  did  you  have 
to.f^  You  went  over  long  before  the  draft  was  thought 
of." 

"  Because  I  'd  been  taught  that  my  flag  and  country 
really  meant  something,"  he  said.  "  That  was  all ;  and 
it  was  quite  enough  in  the  way  of  compulsion  for  a  good 
many  like  myself  who  didn't  hanker  to  stick  bayonets 
through  men  we  'd  never  seen,  nor  shoot  them,  nor  blow 
them  up  with  hand  grenades,  nor  kill  them  ten  thou- 
sand feet  in  the  air  and  watch  them  fall,  turning  over 
and  over  like  a  winged  duck.  But  these  things  seemed 
necessary.  They  said  a  country  worth  living  in  was 
worth  fighting  for." 

"  And  is  n't  it?  "    Betty  Gower  challenged  promptly. 

MacRae  looked  at  her  and  at  the  white  cottage,  at 
the  great  Gulf  seas  smashing  on  the  rocks  below,  at 
the  far  vista  of  sea  and  sky  and  the  shore  line  faintly 
purple  in  the  distance.  His  gaze  turned  briefly  to  the 
leafless  tops  of  maple  and  alder  rising  out  of  the  hollow 
in  which  his  father's  body  lay  —  in  a  comer  of  the  little 
plot  that  was  left  of  all  their  broad  acres  —  and  came 
back  at  last  to  this  fair  daughter  of  his  father's  enemy. 

"The  country  is,  yes,"  he  said.  "Anything  that's 
worth  having  is  worth  fighting  for.  But  that  is  n't 
what  they  meant,  and  that  is  n't  the  way  it  has  worked 
out." 

He  was  not   conscious   of  the  feeling  in  his   voice. 


INHERITANCE  51 

He  was  thinking  with  exaggerated  bitterness  that  the 
Germans  in  Belgium  had  dealt  less  hardly  with  a  con- 
quered people  than  this  girl's  father  had  dealt  with 
his. 

"  I  'm  afraid  I  don't  quite  understand  what  you 
mean  by  that,"  she  remarked.  Her  tone  was  puzzled. 
She  looked  at  him,  frankly  curious. 

But  he  could  not  tell  her  what  he  meant.  He  had  a 
feeling  that  she  was  in  no  way  responsible.  He  had  an 
instinctive  aversion  to  rudeness.  And  while  he  was 
absolving  himself  of  any  intention  to  make  war  on 
her  he  was  wondering  if  her  mother,  long  ago,  had  been 
anything  like  Miss  Betty  Gower.  It  seemed  odd  to 
think  that  this  level-eyed  girl's  mother  might  have 
been  his  mother,  —  if  she  had  been  made  of  stiifer 
metal,  or  if  the  west  wind  had  blown  that  afternoon. 

He  wondered  if  she  knew.  Not  likely,  he  decided. 
It  wasn't  a  story  either  Horace  Gower  or  his  wife 
would  care  to  tell  their  children. 

So  he  did  not  try  to  tell  her  what  he  meant.  He 
withdrew  into  his  shell.  And  when  Betty  Gower  seated 
herself  on  a  rock  and  evinced  an  inclination  to  quiz 
him  about  things  he  did  not  care  to  be  quizzed  about, 
he  lifted  his  cap,  bade  her  a  courteous  good-by,  and 
walked  back  toward  the  Cove. 


CHAPTER   V 

From  the  Bottom  Up 

MacRae  did  nothing  but  mark  time  until  he  found 
himself  a  plain  citizen  once  more.  He  could  have  re- 
mained in  the  service  for  months  without  risk  and  with 
much  profit  to  himself.  But  the  fighting  was  over. 
The  Germans  were  whipped.  That  had  been  the  goal. 
Having  reached  it,  MacRae,  like  thousands  of  other 
young  men,  had  no  desire  to  loaf  in  a  uniform  subject 
to  military  orders  while  the  politicians  wrangled. 

But  even  when  he  found  himself  a  civilian  again, 
master  of  his  individual  fortunes,  he  was  still  a  trifle 
at  a  loss.  He  had  no  definite  plan.  He  was  rather  at 
sea,  because  all  the  things  he  had  planned  on  doing 
when  he  came  home  had  gone  by  the  board.  So  many 
things  which  had  seemed  good  and  desirable  had  been 
contingent  upon  his  father.  Every  plan  he  had  ever 
made  for  the  future  had  included  old  Donald  MacRae 
and  those  wide  acres  across  the  end  of  Squitty.  He 
had  been  deprived  of  both,  left  without  a  ready  mark 
to  shoot  at.  The  flood  of  war  had  carried  him  far. 
The  ebb  of  it  had  set  him  back  on  his  native  shores, — 
stranded  him  there,  so  to  speak,  to  pick  up  the  broken 
threads  of  his  old  life  as  best  he  could. 

He  had  no  quarrel  with  that.  But  he  did  have  a 
feud  with  circumstance,  a  profound  resentment  with 
the  past  for  its  hard  dealing  with  his  father,  for  the 


FROM  THE  BOTTOM  UP  53 

blankness  of  old  Donald's  last  year  or  two  on  earth* 
And  a  good  deal  of  this  focused  on  Horace  Gower  and 
his  wprks. 

"He  might  have  let  up  on  the  old  man,"  Jack 
MacRae  would  say  to  himself  resentfully.  He  would 
lie  awake  in  the  dark  thinking  about  this.  "We  were 
doing  our  bit.  He  might  have  stopped  putting  spokes 
in  our  wheel  while  the  war  was  on." 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  young  MacRae  was 
deeply  touched  in  his  family  pride  as  well  as  his  per- 
sonal sense  of  injustice.  Gower  had  deeply  injured 
his  father,  therefore  it  was  any  MacRae's  concern. 
It  made  no  difference  that  the  first  blow  in  this  quarrel 
had  been  struck  before  he  was  born.  He  smarted 
under  it  and  all  that  followed.  His  only  difficulty  was 
to  discern  a  method  of  repaying  in  kind,  which  he  was 
thoroughly  determined  to  do. 

He  saw  no  way,  if  the  truth  be  told.  He  did  not 
even  contemplate  inflicting  physical  injury  on  Horace 
Gower.  That  would  have  been  absurd.  But  he  wanted 
to  hurt  him,  to  make  him  squirm,  to  heap  trouble  on  the 
man  and  watch  him  break  down  under  the  load.  And 
he  did  not  see  how  he  possibly  could.  Gower  was  too 
well  fortified.  Four  years  of  war  experience,  which 
likewise  embraced  a  considerable  social  experience,  had 
amply  shown  Jack  MacRae  the  subtle  power  of  money, 
of  political  influence,  of  family  connections,  of  commer- 
cial prestige. 

All  these  things  were  on  Gower's  side.  He  was  im- 
pregnable. MacRae  was  not  a  fool.  Neither  was  he 
inclined  to  pessimism.  Yet  so  far  as  he  could  see,  the 
croakers  were  not  lying  when  they  said  that  here  at 
home  the  war  had  made  the  rich  richer  and  the  poor 
poorer.     It  was  painfully  true  in  his  own  case.     He 


54  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

had  given  four  years  of  himself  to  his  country,  gained 
an  honorable  record,  and  lost  everything  else  that  was 
worth  having. 

What  he  had  lost  in  a  material  way  he  meant  to  get 
back.  How,  he  had  not  yet  determined.  His  brain 
was  busy  with  that  problem.  And  the  dying  down  of 
his  first  keen  resentment  and  grief  over  the  death  of 
his  father,  and  that  dead  father's  message  to  him, 
merely  hardened  into  a  cold  resolve  to  pay  off  his 
father's  debt  to  the  Gowers  and  Mortons.  MacRae  ran 
true  to  the  traditions  of  his  Highland  blood  when  he 
lumped  them  all  together. 

In  this  he  was  directed  altogether  by  the  promptings 
of  emotion,  and  he  never  questioned  the  justice  of  his 
attitude.  But  in  the  practical  adjustment  of  his  life 
to  conditions  as  he  found  them  he  adopted  a  purely 
rational  method. 

He  took  stock  of  his  resources.  They  were  limited 
enough.  A  few  hundred  dollars  in  back  pay  and  de- 
mobilization gratuities;  a  sound  body,  now  that  his 
injured  eye  was  all  but  healed;  an  abounding  con- 
fidence in  himself,  —  which  he  had  earned  the  right  to 
feel.  That  was  all.  Ambition  for  place,  power,  wealth, 
he  did  not  feel  as  an  imperative  urge.  He  perceived 
the  value  and  desirability  of  these  things.  Only  he 
saw  no  short  straight  road  to  any  one  of  them. 

For  four  years  he  had  been  fed,  clothed,  directed, 
master  of  his  own  acts  only  in  supreme  moments. 
There  was  an  unconscious  reaction  from  that  high 
pitch.  Being  his  own  man  again  and  a  trifle  uncertain 
what  to  do,  he  did  nothing  at  all  for  a  time.  He  made 
one  trip  to  Vancouver,  to  learn  by  just  what  legal 
processes  the  MacRae  lands  had  passed  into  the  Gower 
possession.     He  found  out  what  he  wanted  to  know 


FROM  THE  BOTTOM  UP  55 

easily  enough.  Gower  had  got  his  birthright  for  a  song. 
Donald  MacRae  had  borrowed  six  thousand  dollars 
through  a  broker.  The  land  was  easily  worth  double, 
even  at  wild-land  valuation.  But  old  Donald's  luck 
had  run  true  to  form.  He  had  not  been  able  to  renew 
the  loan.  The  broker  had  discounted  the  mortgage  in 
a  pinch.  A  financial  house  had  foreclosed  and  sold 
the  place  to  Gower,  —  who  had  been  trying  to  buy  it 
for  years,  through  different  agencies.  His  father's 
papers  told  young  MacRae  plainly  enough  through 
what  channels  the  money  had  gone.  Chance  had  func- 
tioned on  the  wrong  side  for  his  father. 

So  Jack  went  back  to  Squitty  and  stayed  in  the  old 
house,  talked  with  the  fishermen,  spent  a  lot  of  his  time 
with  old  Peter  Ferrara  and  Dolly.  Always  he  was 
casting  about  for  a  course  of  action  which  would  give 
him  scope  for  two  things  upon  which  his  mind  was  set : 
to  get  the  title  to  that  six  hundred  acres  revested  in 
the  MacRae  name,  and,  in  Jack's  own  words  to  Dolores 
Ferrara,  to  take  a  fall  out  of  Horace  Gower  that  would 
jar  the  bones  of  his  ancestors. 

With  Christmas  the  Ferrara  clan  gathered  at  the 
Cove,  all  the  stout  and  able  company  of  Dolly 
Ferrara's  menfolk.  It  had  seemed  to  MacRae  a  curi- 
ous thing  that  Dolly  was  the  only  woman  of  all  the 
Ferraras.  There  had  been  mothers  in  the  Ferrara 
family,  or  there  could  not  have  been  so  many  capable 
uncles  and  cousins.  But  in  MacRae's  memory  there 
had  never  been  any  mothers  or  sisters  or  daughters 
save  Dolly. 

There  were  nine  male  Ferraras  when  Jack  MacRae 
went  to  France.  Dolores'  father  was  dead.  Uncle  Peter 
was  a  bachelor.  He  had  two  brothers,  and  each  brother 
had  bred  three  sons.    Four  of  these  sons  had  left  their 


56  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

boats  and  gear  to  go  overseas.  TVo  of  them  would 
never  come  back.  The  other  two  were  home, — one  after 
a  whiif  of  gas  at  Ypres,  the  other  with  a  leg  shorter  by 
two  inches  than  when  he  went  away.  These  two  made 
nothing  of  their  disabilities,  however;  they  were  home 
and  they  were  nearly  as  good  as  ever.  That  was 
enough  for  them.  And  with  the  younger  boys  and  their 
fathers  they  came  to  old  Peter's  house  for  a  week  at 
Christmas,  after  an  annual  custom.  These  gatherings 
in  the  old  days  had  always  embraced  Donald  MacRae 
and  his  son.  And  his  son  was  glad  that  it  included 
him  now.     He  felt  a  little  less  alone. 

They  were  of  the  sea,  these  Ferraras,  Castilian  Span- 
ish, tempered  and  diluted  by  three  generations  in  North 
America.  Their  forebears  might  have  sailed  in  cara- 
vels. They  knew  the  fishing  grounds  of  the  British 
Columbia  coast  as  a  schoolboy  knows  his  a,  b,  c's. 
They  would  never  get  rich,  but  they  were  independent 
fishermen,  making  a  good  living.  And  they  were  as 
clannish  as  the  Scotch.  All  of  them  had  chipped  in  to 
send  Dolly  to  school  in  Vancouver.  Old  Peter  could 
never  have  done  that,  MacRae  knew,  on  what  he  could 
make  trolling  around  Poor  Man's  Rock.  Peter  had 
been  active  with  gill  net  and  seine  when  Jack  MacRae 
was  too  young  to  take  thought  of  the  commercial  end  of 
salmon  fishing.  He  was  about  sixty-five  now,  a  lean, 
hardy  old  fellow,  but  he  seldom  went  far  from  Squitty 
Cove.  There  was  Steve  and  Frank  and  Vincent  and 
Manuel  of  the  younger  generation,  and  Manuel  and 
Peter  and  Joaquin  of  the  elder.  Those  three  had  been 
contemporary  with  Donald  MacRae.  They  esteemed 
old  Donald.  Jack  heard  many  things  about  his  father's 
early  days  on  the  Gulf  that  were  new  to  him,  that  made 
his  blood  tingle  and  made  him  wish  he  had  lived  then 


FROM  THE  BOTTOM  UP  57 

too.  Thirty  years  back  the  Gulf  of  Georgia  was  no 
place  for  any  but  two-handed  men. 

He  heard  also,  in  that  week  of  casual  talk  among  the 
Ferraras,  certain  things  said,  statements  made  that 
suggested  a  possibility  which  never  seemed  to  have 
occurred  to  the  Ferraras  themselves. 

"The  FoUy  Bay  pack  of  blueback  was  a  whopper 
last  summer,"  Vincent  Ferrara  said  once.  *'They 
must  have  cleaned  up  a  barrel  of  money." 

Folly  Bay  was  Gower's  cannery. 

"Well,  he  didn't  make  much  of  it  out  of  us,"  old 
Manuel  grunted.     "  We  should  worry." 

**  Just  the  same,  he  ought  to  be  made  to  pay  more 
for  his  fish.  He  ought  to  pay  what  they're  worth, 
for  a  change,"  Vincent  drawled.  "He  makes  about  a 
hundred  trollers  eat  out  of  his  hand  the  first  six  weeks 
of  the  season.  If  somebody  would  put  on  a  couple  of 
good,  fast  carriers,  and  start  buying  fish  as  soon  as  he 
opens  his  cannery,  I  '11  bet  he  'd  pay  more  than  twenty- 
five  cents  for  a  five-pound  salmon." 

"Maybe.  But  that's  been  tried  and  didn't  work. 
Every  buyer  that  ever  cut  in  on  Gower  soon  found  him- 
self up  against  the  Packers'  Association  when  he  went 
into  the  open  market  with  his  fish.  And  a  wise  man,'^ 
old  Manuel  grinned,  *' don't  even  figure  on  monkeying 
with  a  buzz  saw,  sonny." 

Not  long  afterward  Jack  MacRae  got  old  Manuel  in 
a  comer  and  asked  him  what  he  meant. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "it's  like  this.  When  the  blue- 
backs  first  run  here  in  the  spring,  they  're  pretty  small, 
too  small  for  canning.  But  the  fresh  fish  markets  in 
town  take  'em  and  palm  'em  off  on  the  public  for  sal- 
mon trout.  So  there's  an  odd  fresh-fish  buyer  cruises 
around  here  and  picks  up  a  few  loads  of  salmon  between 


58  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

tly  end  of  April  and  the  middle  of  June.  The  Folly 
Bay  cannery  opens  about  then,  and  the  buyers  quit. 
"Hiey  go  farther  up  the  coast.  Partly  because  there 's 
more  fish,  mostly  because  nobody  has  ever  made  any 
money  bucking  Gower  for  salmon  on  his  own  grounds." 

"  Why?  "     MacRae  asked  bluntly. 

"  Nobody  knows  exactly  why,"  Manuel  replied.  "  A 
feller  can  guess,  though.  You  know  the  fisheries  de- 
partment has  the  British  Columbia  coast  cut  up  iuto 
areas,  and  each  area  is  controlled  by  some  packer  as 
a  concession.  Well,  Gower  has  the  Folly  Bay  license, 
and  a  couple  of  purse-seine  licenses,  and  that  just 
about  gives  him  the  say-so  on  all  the  waters  around 
Squitty,  besides  a  couple  of  good  bays  on  the  Van- 
couver Island  side  and  the  same  on  the  mainland.  He 
belongs  to  the  Packers'  Association.  They  ain't  sup- 
posed to  control  the  local  market.  But  the  way  it 
works  out  they  really  do.  At  least,  when  an  independ- 
ent fish  buyer  gets  to  cuttin'  in  strong  on  a  packer's 
territory,  he  generally  finds  himself  in  trouble  to  sell 
in  Vancouver  unless  he's  got  a  cast-iron  contract. 
That  is,  he  can't  sell  enough  to  make  any  money.  Any 
damn  fool  can  make  a  living. 

"  At  the  top  of  the  island  here  there  *s  a  bunch  that 
has  homesteads.  They  troll  in  the  summer.  They 
deal  at  the  Folly  Bay  cannery  store.  Generally  they're 
in  the  hole  by  spring.  Even  if  they  ain't  they  have  to 
depend  on  Folly  Bay  to  market  their  catch.  .The  can- 
nery's  a  steady  buyer,  once  it  opens.  JThey  can't  al- 
ways depend  on  the  freshrfish  buyer,  even  if  he  pays  a 
few  cents  more.  So  once  the  cannery  opens,  Gower  has 
a  bunch  of  trollers  ready  to  deliver  salmon  at  most  any 
price  he  cares  to  name.  And  he  generally  names  the 
lowest  price  on  the  coast.     He  don't  have  no  competi- 


FROM  THE  BOTTOM  UP  59 

tion  for  a  month  or  so.  If  there  is  a  little  there 's  ways 
of  killin'  it.  So  he  sets  his  own  price.  The  trollers  can 
take  it  or  leave  it." 

Old  Manuel  stopped  to  light  his  pipe. 

"For  three  seasons,"  said  he,  "Gower  has  bought 
blueback  salmon  the  first  month  of  the  season  for 
twenty-five  cents  or  less  —  fish  that  run  three  to  four 
pounds.  And  there  hasn't  been  a  time  when  salmon 
could  be  bought  in  a  Vancouver  fresh-fish  market  for 
less  than  twenty-five  cents  a  pound." 

*'  Huh !  "  MacRae  grunted. 

It  set  him  thinking.  He  had  a  sketchy  knowledge  of 
the  salmon  packer's  monopoly  of  cannery  sites  and 
pursing  licenses  and  waters.  He  had  heard  more  or 
less  talk  among  fishermen  of  agreements  in  restraint  of 
competition  among  the  canneries.  But  he  had  never 
supposed  it  to  be  quite  so  effective  as  Manuel  Ferrara 
beHeved. 

Even  if  it  were,  a  gentleman's  agreement  of  that  sort, 
being  a  matter  of  profit  rather  than  principle,  was  apt 
to  be  broken  by  any  member  of  the  combination  who 
saw  a  chance  to  get  ahead  of  the  rest. 

MacRae  took  passage  for  Vancouver  the  second  week 
in  January  with  a  certain  plan  weaving  itself  to  form 
in  his  mind,  —  a  plan  which  promised  action  and  money 
and  other  desirable  results  if  he  could  carry  it  through. 


CHAPTER  VI 

The  Springboard 

With  a  basic  knowledge  to  start  from,  any  reasonably 
clever  man  can  digest  an  enormous  amount  of  infor- 
mation about  any  given  industry  in  a  very  brief  time. 
Jack  MacRae  spent  three  weeks  in  Vancouver  as  a 
one-man  commission,  self-appointed,  to  inquire  into  the 
fresh-salmon  trade.  He  talked  to  men  who  caught  sal- 
mon and  to  men  who  sold  them,  both  wholesale  and 
retail.  He  apprised  himself  of  the  ins  and  outs  of  sal- 
mon canning,  and  of  the  independent  fish  collector  who 
owned  his  own  boat,  financed  himself,  and  chanced  the 
market  much  as  a  farmer  plants  his  seed,  trusts  to  the 
weather,  and  makes  or  loses  according  to  the  yield  and 
market,  —  two  matters  over  which  he  can  have  no 
control. 

MacRae  learned  before  long  that  old  Manuel  Ferrara 
was  right  when  he  said  no  man  could  profitably  buy 
salmon  unless  he  had  a  cast-iron  agreement  either  with 
a  cannery  or  a  big  wholesaler.  MacRae  soon  saw  that 
the  wholesaler  stood  like  a  wall  between  the  fishermen 
and  those  who  ate  fish.  They  could  make  or  break  a 
buyer.  MacRae  was  not  long  running  afoul  of  the 
rumor  that  the  wholesale  fish  men  controlled  the  retail 
price  of  fresh  fish  by  the  simple  method  of  controlling 
the  supply,  which  they  managed  by  cooperation  instead 
of  competition  among  themselves.  He  heard  this  stated. 
And  more,  —  that  behind   the  big   dealers    stood   the 


THE  SPRINGBOARD  6i 

shadowy  figure  of  the  canning  colossus.  This  was  told 
him  casually  by  fishermen.  Fish  buyers  repeated  it, 
sometimes  with  a  touch  of  indignation.  That  was  one 
of  their  wails,  —  the  fish  combine.  It  was  air-tight, 
they  said.  The  packers  had  a  strangle  hold  on  the 
fishing  waters,  and  the  big  local  fish  houses  had  the 
same  unrelenting  grip  on  the  market. 

Therefore  the  ultimate  consumer  —  whose  exploita- 
tion was  the  prize  plum  of  commercial  success  —  paid 
thirty  cents  per  pound  for  spring  salmon  that  a  fisher- 
man chivied  about  in  the  tumbling  Gulf  seas  fifty  miles 
up-coast  had  to  take  fourteen  cents  for.  As  for  the  sal- 
mon packers,  the  men  who  pack  the  good  red  fish  in 
small  round  tins  which  go  to  all  the  ends  of  the  earth 
to  feed  hungry  folk,  —  well,  no  one  knew  their  profits. 
Their  pack  was  all  exported.  The  back  yards  of  Europe 
are  strewn  with  empty  salmon  cans  bearing  a  British 
Columbia  label.  But  they  made  money  enough  to  be 
a  standing  grievance  to  those  unable  to  get  in  on  this 
bonanza. 

MacRae,  however,  was  chiefly  concerned  with  the 
local  trade  in  fresh  salmon.  His  plan  did  n't  look  quite 
so  promising  as  when  he  mulled  over  it  at  Squitty  Cove. 
He  put  out  feelers  and  got  no  hold.  A  fresh-fish  buyer 
operating  without  approved  market  connections  might 
make  about  such  a  living  as  the  fishermen  he  bought 
from.  To  Jack  MacRae,  eager  and  sanguine,  making  a 
living  was  an  inconspicuous  detail.  Making  a  living,  — 
that  was  nothing  to  him.  A  more  definite  spur  row- 
eled  his  flank. 

It  looked  like  an  air-tight  proposition,  he  admitted, 
at  last.  But,  he  said  to  himself,  anything  air-tight 
could  be  punctured.  And  undoubtedly  a  fine  flow  of 
currency  would  result  from  such  a  puncture.     So  he 


62  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

kept  on  looking  about,  asking  casual  questions,  listen- 
ing.   In  the  language  of  the  street  he  was  getting  wise. 

Incidentally  he  enjoyed  himself.  The  battle  ground 
had  been  transferred  to  Paris.  The  pen,  the  t3rpe- 
writer,  and  the  press  dispatch,  with  immense  reserves 
of  oratory  and  printer's  ink,  had  gone  into  action. 
And  the  soldiers  were  coming  home,  —  officers  of  the 
line  and  airmen  first,  since  to  these  leave  and  transpor- 
tation came  easily,  now  that  the  guns  were  silent. 
MacRae  met  fellows  he  knew.  A  good  many  of  them 
were  well  off,  had  homes  in  Vancouver.  They  were 
mostly  young  and  glad  the  big  show  was  over.  And 
they  had  the  social  instinct.  During  intervals  of  fight- 
ing they  had  rubbed  elbows  with  French  and  British 
people  of  consequence.  They  had  a  mind  to  enjoy 
themselves. 

MacRae  had  a  record  in  two  squadrons.  He  needed 
no  press-agenting  when  he  met  another  R.  A.  F.  man. 
So  he  found  himself  invited  to  homes,  the  inside  of  which 
he  would  otherwise  never  have  seen,  and  to  pleasant 
functions  among  people  who  would  never  have  known  of 
his  existence  save  for  the  circumstance  of  war.  Pretty, 
well-bred  girls  smiled  at  him,  partly  because  airmen 
with  notable  records  were  still  a  novelty,  and  partly 
because  Jack  MacRae  was  worth  a  second  look  from 
any  girl  who  was  fancy-free.  Matrons  were  kind  to 
him  because  their  sons  said  he  was  the  right  sort,  and 
some  of  these  same  matrons  mothered  him  because  he 
was  like  boys  they  knew  who  had  gone  away  to  France 
and  would  never  come  back. 

This  was  very  pleasant.  MacRae  was  normal  in 
every  respect.  He  liked  to  dance.  He  liked  glittering 
lights  and  soft  music.  He  liked  nice  people.  He  liked 
people  who  were  nice  to  him.    But  he  seldom  lost  sight 


THE  SPRINGBOARD  63 

of  his  objective.  These  people  could  relax  and  give 
themselves  up  to  enjoyment  because  they  were 
"heeled"  —  as  a  boy  lieutenant  slangily  put  it  —  to 
MacRae. 

"  It 's  a  great  game,  Jack,  if  you  don't  weaken,"  he 
said.  "But  a  fellow  can't  play  it  through  on  a  uni- 
form and  a  war  record.  I  'm  having  a  top-hole  time, 
but  it'll  be  different  when  I  plant  myself  at  a  desk  in 
some  broker's  office  at  a  hundred  and  fifty  a  month. 
It 's  mixed  pickles,  for  a  fact.  You  can't  buy  your  way 
into  this  sort  of  thing.  And  you  can't  stay  in  it  with- 
out a  bank  roll." 

Which  was  true  enough.  Only  the  desire  to  "  see  it 
through"  socially  was  not  driving  Jack  MacRae.  He 
had  a  different  target,  and  his  eye  did  not  wander  far 
from  the  mark.  And  perhaps  because  of  this,  chance 
and  his  social  gadding  about  gave  him  the  opening  he 
sought  when  he  least  expected  to  find  one. 

To  be  explicit,  he  happened  to  be  one  of  an  after- 
theater  party  at  an  informal  supper  dance  in  the 
Granada,  which  is  to  Vancouver  what  the  Biltmore  is  to 
New  York  or  the  Fairmont  to  San  Francisco,  —  a  place 
where  one  can  see  everybody  that  is  anybody  if  one  lin- 
gers long  enough.  And  almost  the  first  man  he  met  was 
a  stout,  ruddy-faced  youngster  about  his  own  age. 
They  had  flown  in  the  same  squadron  until  "  Stubby " 
Abbott  came  a  cropper  and  was  invalided  home. 

Stubby  fell  upon  Jack  MacRae,  pounded  him  earn- 
estly on  the  back,  and  haled  him  straight  to  a  table 
where  two  women  were  sitting. 

"  Mother,"  he  said  to  a  plump,  middle-aged  woman, 
"here's  Silent  John  MacRae." 

Her  eyes  lit  up  pleasantly. 

"  I  've  heard  of  you,'*    she  said,  and  her  extended 


64  POOR  MAN^S  ROCK 

hand  put  the  pressure  of  the  seal  of  sincerity  on  her 
words.  "  I  've  wanted  to  thank  you.  You  can  scarcely 
know  what  you  did  for  us.  Stubby 's  the  only  man  in 
the  family,  you  know.*' 

MacRae  smiled. 

"  Why,"  he  said  easily,  "  little  things  like  that  were 
part  of  the  game.  Stubb  used  to  pull  off  stuff  like  that 
himself  now  and  then." 

"  Anyway,  we  can  thank  God  it 's  over,"  Mrs.  Abbott 
said  fervently.  "Pardon  me,  —  my  daughter,  Mr. 
MacRae." 

Nelly  Abbott  was  small,  tending  to  plumpness  like 
h^r  mother.  She  was  very  fair  with  eyes  of  true  violet, 
a  baby-doll  sort  of  young  woman,  and  she  took  pos- 
session of  Jack  MacRae  as  easily  and  naturally  as  if 
she  had  known  him  for  years.  They  drifted  away  in 
a  dance,  sat  the  next  one  out  together  with  Stubby  and 
a  slim  young  thing  in  orange  satin  whose  talk  ran  un- 
deviatingly  upon  dances  and  sports  and  motor  trips, 
past  and  anticipated.  Listening  to  her,  Jack  MacRae 
fell  dumb.  Her  father  was  worth  half  a  million.  Jack 
wondered  how  much  of  it  he  would  give  to  endow  his 
daughter  with  a  capacity  for  thought.  A  label  on 
her  program  materialized  to  claim  her  presently. 
Stubby  looked  after  her  and  grinned.  MacRae  looked 
thoughtful.  The  girl  was  pretty,  almost  beautiful. 
She  looked  like  Dolores  Ferrara,  dark,  creamy-skinned, 
seductive.  And  MacRae  was  comparing  the  two  to 
Dolores'  advantage. 

Nelly  Abbott  was  eying  MacRae. 

'*Tessie  bores  you,  eh?"  she  said  bluntly. 

MacRae  smiled.  "Her  flow  of  profound  utterance 
carries  me  out  of  my  depth,  I  'm  afraid,"  said  he.  "  I 
can't  follow  her." 


THE  SPRINGBOARD  65 

** She'd  lead  you  a  chase  if  you  tried,"  Stubby 
grinned  and  sauntered  away  to  smoke. 

"Is  that  sarcasm?"  Nelly  drawled.  "I  wonder  if 
you  are  called  Silent  John  because  you  stop  talking 
now  and  then  to  think?  Most  of  us  don't,  you  know. 
Tell  me,"  she  changed  the  subject  abruptly,  "did  you 
know  Norman  Gower  overseas  ?  " 

"  He  was  an  officer  in  the  battalion  I  went  over  with," 
MacRae  replied.  "I  went  over  in  the  ranks,  you  see. 
So  I  couldn't  very  well  know  him.  And  I  never  met 
him  after  I  transferred  to  the  air  service." 

"I  just  wondered,"  Nelly  went  on.  **I  know  Nor- 
man rather  well.  It  has  been  whispered  about  that  he 
pulled  every  string  to  keep  away  from  the  front,  —  that 
all  he  has  done  over  there  is  to  hold  down  cushy  j  obs  in 
England.     Did  you  ever  hear  any  such  talk?" 

"We  were  too  busy  to  gossip  about  the  boys  at 
home,  except  to  envy  them.'*  MacRae  evaded  direct 
reply,  and  Nelly  did  not  follow  it  up. 

"I  see  his  sister  over  there.  Betty  is  a  dear  girl. 
That's  she  talking  to  Stubby.  Come  over  and  meet 
her.  They  've  been  up  on  their  island  for  a  long  time, 
wlule  the  flu  raged." 

MacRae  couldn't  very  well  avoid  it  without  seeming 
rude  or  making  an  explanation  which  he  did  not  intend 
to  make  to  any  one.  His  grudge  against  the  Gower 
clan  was  focused  on  Horace  Gower.  His  feeling  had 
not  abated  a  jot.  But  it  was  a  personal  matter,  some- 
thing to  remain  locked  in  his  own  breast.  So  he  per- 
force went  with  Nelly  Abbott  and  was  duly  presented 
to  Miss  Elizabeth  Gower.  And  he  had  the  next  dance 
with  her,  also  for  convention's  sake." 

While  they  stood  chatting  a  moment,  the  four  of 
them.  Stubby  said  to  MacRae: 


66  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

"  Who  are  you  with,  Jack?  " 

"The  Robbin-Steeles." 

"  If  I  don't  get  a  chance  to  talk  to  you  again,  come 
out  to  the  house  to-morrow,"  Stubby  said.  "The 
mater  said  so,  and  I  want  to  talk  to  you  about  some- 
thing." 

The  music  began  and  MacRae  and  Betty  Gower  slid 
away  in  the  one-step,  that  most  conversational  of 
dances.  But  Jack  couldn't  find  himself  chatty  with 
Betty  Gower.  She  was  graceful  and  clear-eyed,  a  vigor- 
ously healthy  girl  with  a  touch  of  color  in  her  cheeks 
that  came  out  of  Nature's  rouge  pot.  But  MacRae 
was  subtly  conscious  of  a  stiffness  between  them. 

"After  all,'^  Betty  said  abruptly,  when  they  had 
circled  half  the  room,  "  it  was  worth  fighting  for,  don't 
you  really  think.'*" 

For  a  second  MacRae  looked  down  at  her,  puzzled. 
Then  he  remembered. 

"  Good  Heavens ! "  he  said,  "  is  that  still  bothering 
you?  Do  you  take  everything  a  fellow  says  so  seri- 
ously as  that?" 

"  No.  It  was  n't  so  much  what  you  said  as  the  way 
you  said  it,"  she  replied.  "You  were  uncompromis- 
ingly hostile  that  day,  for  some  reason.  Have  you 
acquired  a  more  equable  outlook  since?" 

"  I  'm  trying,"  he  answered. 

**You  need  coaching  in  the  art  of  looking  on  the 
bright  side  of  things,"   she  smiled. 

"  Such  as  clusters  of  frosted  lights,  cut  glass,  dia- 
monds, silk  dresses  and  ropes  of  pearls,"  he  drawled. 
"Would  you  care  to  take  on  the  coaching  job.  Miss 
Gower?  " 

"  I  might  be  persuaded."  She  looked  him  frankly  in 
the  eyes. 


N 


THE  SPRINGBOARD  67 

But  MacRae  would  not  follow  that  lead,  whatever  it 
might  mean.  Betty  Gower  was  nice,  —  he  had  to  admit 
it.  To  glide  around  on  a  polished  floor  with  his  arm 
around  her  waist,  her  soft  hand  clasped  in  his,  and  her 
face  close  to  his  own,  her  grayish-blue  eyes,  which 
were  so  very  like  his  own,  now  smiling  and  now  soberly 
reflective,  was  not  the  way  to  carry  on  an  inherited 
feud.  He  couldn't  subject  himself  to  that  peculiarly 
feminine  attraction  which  Betty  Gower  bore  like  an 
aura  and  nurse  a  grudge.  In  fact,  he  had  no  grudge 
against  Betty  Gower  except  that  she  was  the  daughter 
of  her  father.  And  he  could  n't  explain  to  her  that  he 
hated  her  father  because  of  injustice  and  injury  done 
before  either  of  them  was  born.  In  the  genial  atmos- 
phere of  the  Granada  that  sort  of  thing  did  not  seem 
nearly  so  real,  so  vivid,  as  when  he  stood  on  the  cliffs 
of  Squitty  listening  to  the  pound  of  the  surf.  Then  it 
welled  up  in  him  like  a  flood,  —  the  resentment  for  all 
that  Gower  had  made  his  father  suffer,  for  those  thirty 
years  of  reprisal  which  had  culminated  in  reducing 
his  patrimony  to  an  old  log  house  and  a  garden  patch 
out  of  all  that  wide  sweep  of  land  along  the  southern 
face  of  Squitty.  He  looked  at  Betty  and  wished  silently 
that  she  were,  —  well.  Stubby  Abbott's  sister.  He  could 
be  as  nice  as  he  wanted  to  then.  Whereupon,  instinc- 
tively feeling  himself  upon  dangerous  ground,  he  di- 
verged from  the  personal,  talked  without  saying  much 
until  the  music  stopped  and  they  found  seats.  And 
when  another  partner  claimed  Betty,  Jack  as  a  matter 
of  courtesy  had  to  rejoin  his  own  party. 

The  affair  broke  up  at  length.  MacRae  slept  late 
the  next  morning.  By  the  time  he  had  dressed  and 
breakfasted  and  taken  a  flying  trip  to  Coal  Harbor  to 
look  over  a  fort3'-five-foot  fish  carrier  which  was  adver- 


68  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

tised  for  sale,  he  bethought  himself  of  Stubby  Abbott's 
request  and,  getting  on  a  car,  rode  out  to  the  Abbott 
home.  This  was  a  roomy  stone  house  occupying  a 
sightly  corner  in  the  West  End,  —  that  sharply  defined 
residential  area  of  Vancouver  which  real  estate  agents 
unctuously  speak  of  as  "select."  There  was  half  a 
block  of  ground  in  green  lawn  bordered  with  rose- 
bushes. The  house  itself  was  solid,  homely,  built  for 
use,  and  built  to  endure,  all  stone  and  heavy  beams, 
wide  windows  and  deep  porches,  and  a  red  tile  roof 
lifting  above  the  gray  stone  walls. 

Stubby  permitted  MacRae  a  few  minutes'  exchange 
of  pleasantries  with  his  mother  and  sister. 

"  I  want  to  extract  some  useful  information  from  this 
man,"  Stubby  said  at  length.  "You  can  have  at  him 
later,  Nell.     He'll  stay  to  dinner." 

"How  do  you  know  he  will.?"  NeUy  demanded. 
"He  hasn't  said  so,  yet." 

"Between  you  and  me,  he  can't  escape,"  Stubby 
said  cheerfully  and  led  Jack  away  upstairs  into  a  small 
cheerful  room  liued  with  bookshelves,  warmed  by  glow- 
ing coals  in  a  grate,  and  with  windows  that  gave  a 
look  down  on  a  sandy  beach  facing  the  Gulf. 

Stubby  pushed  two  chairs  up  to  the  fire,  waved  Jack 
to  one,  and  extended  his  own  feet  to  the  blaze. 

"  I  've  seen  the  inside  of  a  good  many  homes  in  town 
lately,"   MacRae  observed.     "This  is  the  homiest  one 

yet." 

"  I  '11  say  it  is,"  Stubby  agreed.  "  A  place  that  has 
been  lived  in  and  cared  for  a  long  time  gets  that  way, 
though.  Remember  some  of  those  old,  old  places  in 
England  and  France?  This  is  new  compared  to  that 
country.  Still,  my  father  built  this  house  when  the 
West  End  was  covered  with  virgin  timber." 


THE  SPRINGBOARD  69 

**  How  'd  you  like  to  be  bom  and  grow  up  in  a  house 
that  your  father  built  with  a  vision  of  future  genera- 
tions of  his  blood  growing  up  in,"  Stubby  murmured, 
**  and  come  home  crippled  after  three  years  in  the  red 
mill  and  find  you  stood  a  fat  chance  of  losing  it?  " 

"I  wouldn't  like  it  much,'*  MacRae  agreed. 

But  he  did  not  say  that  he  had  already  undergone 
the  distasteful  experience  Stubby  mentioned  as  a  possi- 
bility.   He  waited  for  Stubby  to  go  on. 

"Well,  it's  a  possibility,"  Stubby  continued,  quite 
cheerfully,  however.  "  I  don't  propose  to  allow  it  to 
happen.  Hang  it,  I  would  n't  blat  this  to  any  one  but 
you,  Jack.  The  mater  has  only  a  hazy  idea  of  how 
things  stand,  and  she 's  an  incurable  optimist  anyway. 
Nelly  and  the  Infant  —  you  have  n't  met  the  Infant  yet 
—  don't  know  anything  about  it.  I  tell  you  it  put  the 
breeze  up  when  I  got  able  to  go  into  our  affairs  and 
learned  how  things  stood.  I  thought  I'd  get  mended 
and  then  be  a  giddy  idler  for  a  year  or  so.  But  it 's 
up  to  me.  I  have  to  get  into  the  collar.  Otherwise  I 
should  have  stayed  south  all  winter.  You  know  we  've 
just  got  home.  I  had  to  loaf  in  the  sun  for  practically 
a  year.  Now  I  have  to  get  busy.  I  don't  mean  to  say 
that  the  poorhouse  stares  us  in  the  face,  you  know, 
but  unless  a  certain  amount  of  revenue  is  forthcoming, 
we  simply  can't  afford  to  keep  up  this  place. 

"  And  I  'd  damn  well  like  to  keep  it  going."  Stubby 
paused  to  light  a  cigarette.  "  I  like  it.  It 's  our  home. 
We  'd  be  deucedly  sore  at  seeing  anybody  else  hang  up 
his  hat  and  call  it  home.  So  behold  in  me  an  active 
cannery  operator  when  the  season  opens,  a  conscience- 
less profiteer  for  sentiment's  sake.  You  live  up  where 
the  blueback  salmon  run,  don't  you,  Jack.''" 

MacRae  nodded. 


70  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

"  How  many  trollers  fish  those  waters  ?  " 

"Anywhere  from  forty  to  a  hundred,  from  ten  to 
thirty  rowboats.'^ 

"The  Folly  Bay  cannery  gets  practically  all  that 
catch?" 

MacRae  nodded  again. 

"  I  'm  trying  to  figure  a  way  of  getting  some  of  those 
blueback  salmon,"  Abbott  said  crisply.  "How  can  it 
best  be  done  ?  " 

MacRae  thought  a  minute.  A  whole  array  of  possi- 
bilities popped  into  his  mind.  He  knew  that  the  Abbotts 
owned  the  Crow  Harbor  cannery,  in  the  mouth  of  Howe 
Sound  just  outside  Vancouver  Harbor.  When  he  spoke 
he  asked  a  question  instead  of  giving  an  answer. 

"Are  you  going  to  buck  the  Packers'  Association?" 

"Yes  and  no,"  Stubby  chuckled.  "You  do  know 
something  about  the  cannery  business,  don't  you?" 

"One  or  two  things,"  MacRae  admitted.  "I  grew 
up  in  the  Gulf,  remember,  among  salmon  fishermen." 

"  Well,  I  '11  be  a  little  more  explicit,"  Stubby  volun- 
teered. "Briefly,  my  father,  as  you  know,  died  while 
I  was  overseas.  We  own  the  Crow  Harbor  cannery.  I 
will  say  that  while  I  was  still  going  to  school  he  started 
in  teaching  me  the  business,  and  he  taught  me  the  way 
he  learned  it  himself  —  in  the  cannery  and  among  fish- 
ermen. If  I  do  say  it,  I  know  the  salmon  business  from 
gill  net  and  purse  seine  to  the  Iron  Chink  and  bank  ad- 
vances on  the  season's  pack.  But  Abbott,  senior,  it 
seems,  was  n't  a  profiteer.  He  took  the  war  to  heart. 
His  patriotism  didn't  consist  of  buying  war  bonds  in 
fifty-thousand  dollar  lots  and  calling  it  square.  He  got 
in  wrong  by  trying  to  keep  the  price  of  fresh  fish  down 
locally,  and  the  last  year  he  lived  the  Crow  Harbor 
cannery  only  made  a  normal  profit.     Last  season  the 


THE  SPRINGBOARD  ^x 

plant  operated  at  a  loss  in  the  hands  of  hired  men. 
They  simply  did  n't  get  the  fish.  The  Fraser  River  run 
of  sockeye  has  been  going  downhill.  The  river  canner- 
ies get  the  fish  that  do  run.  Crow  Harbor,  with  a  man- 
ager who  was  n't  up  on  his  toes,  got  very  few.  I  don*t 
believe  we  will  ever  see  another  big  sockeye  run  in  the 
Fraser  anyway.  So  we  shall  have  to  go  up-coast  to 
supplement  the  Howe  Sound  catch  and  the  few  sockeyes 
we  can  get  from  gill-netters. 

"The  Packers'  Association  can't  hurt  me  —  much. 
For  one  thing,  I  'm  a  member.  For  another,  I  can  still 
swing  enough  capital  so  they  would  hesitate  about 
using  pressure.  You  understand.  I've  got  to  make 
that  Crow  Harbor  plant  pay.  I  must  have  salmon  to 
do  so.  I  have  to  go  outside  my  immediate  territory  to 
get  them.  If  I  could  get  enough  blueback  to  keep  full 
steam  from  the  opening  of  the  sockeye  season  until  the 
coho  run  comes  —  there's  nothing  to  it.  I've  been 
having  this  matter  looked  into  pretty  thoroughly.  I 
can  pay  twenty  per  cent,  over  anything  Gower  has  ever 
paid  for  blueback  and  coin  money.  The  question  is, 
how  can  I  get  them  positively  and  in  quantity.'"' 

"  Buy  them,"  MacRae  put  in  softly. 

"  Of  course,"  Stubby  agreed.  "  But  buying  direct 
means  collecting.  I  have  the  carriers,  true.  But  where 
am  I  going  to  find  men  to  whom  I  can  turn  over  a  six- 
thousand-dollar  boat  and  a  couple  of  thousand  dollars 
in  cash  and  say  to  him,  *  Go  buy  me  salmon '?  His  only 
interest  in  the  matter  is  his  wage." 

"  Bonus  the  crew.  Pay  'em  percentage  on  what  sal- 
mon they  bring  in." 

"  I  've  thought  of  that,"  Stubby  said  between  puffs. 
"But—" 

"  Or,"  MacRae  made  the  plunge  he  had  been  coming 


72  '       POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

to  while  Stubby  talked,  "  I  '11  get  them  for  you.  I  was 
going  to  buy  bluebacks  around  Squitty  anyi^ay  for 
the  fresh-fish  market  in  town  if  I  can  make  a  sure- 
delivery  connection.  I  know  those  grounds.  I  know  a 
lot  of  fishermen.  If  you'll  give  me  twenty  per  cent, 
over  Gower  prices  for  bluebacks  delivered  at  Crow 
Harbor  I  '11  get  them." 

"This  grows  interesting."  Stubby  straightened  in 
his  chair.  "I  thought  you  were  going  to  ranch  it! 
Lord,  I  remember  the  night  we  sat  watching  for  the 
bombers  to  come  back  from  a  raid  and  you  first  told 
me  about  that  place  of  yours  on  Squitty  Island.  Seems 
ages  ago  —  yet  it  is  n't  long.  As  I  remember,  you  were 
planning  aU  sorts  of  things  you  and  your  father  would 
do." 

"I  can't,"  MacRae  said  grimly.  "You've  been  in 
California  for  months.  You  wouldn't  hear  any  men- 
tion of  my  affairs,  anyway,  if  you  'd  been  home.  I  got 
back  three  days  before  the  armistice.  My  father  died 
of  the  flu  the  night  I  got  home.  The  ranch,  or  aU  of 
it  but  the  old  log  house  I  was  bom  in  and  a  patch  of 
ground  the  size  of  a  town  lot,  has  gone  the  way  you 
mentioned  your  home  might  go  if  you  don't  buck  up 
the  business.  Things  did  n't  go  well  with  us  lately.  I 
have  no  land  to  turn  to.  So  I  'm  for  the  salmon  busi- 
ness as  a  means  to  get  on  my  feet." 

"  Gower  got  your  place?  "  Abbott  hazarded. 

"  Yes.    How  did  you  know?" 

"  Made  a  guess.  I  heard  he  had  built  a  summer  home 
on  the  southeast  end  of  Squitty.  In  fact  Nelly  was  up 
there  last  summer  for  a  week  or  so.  Hurts,  eh.  Jack? 
That  little  trip  to  France  cost  us  both  something." 

MacRae  sprang  up  and  walked  over  to  a  window. 
He  stood  for  half  a  minute  staring  out  to  sea,  looking 


THE  SPRINGBOARD  73 

in  that  direction  by  chance,  because  the  window  hap- 
pened to  face  that  way,  to  where  the  Gulf  haze  lifted 
above  a  faint  purple  patch  that  was  Squitty  Island, 
very  far  on  the  horizon. 

"  I  'm  not  kicking,"  he  said  at  last.  "  Not  out  loud, 
anyway.^* 

"  No,"  Stubby  said  affectionately,  "  I  know  you  're 
not,  old  man.  Nor  am  I.  But  I'm  going  to  get  ac- 
tion, and  I  have  a  hunch  you  will  too.  Now  about  this 
fish  business.  If  you  think  you  can  get  them,  I  '11  cer- 
tainly go  you  on  that  twenty  per  cent,  proposition^ — up 
to  the  point  where  Gower  boosts  me  out  of  the  game, 
if  that  is  possible.  We  shall  have  to  readjust  our 
arrangement  then." 

"  Will  you  give  me  a  contract  to  that  effect  ?  "  Mac- 
Rae  asked, 

"Absolutely.  We'll  get  together  at  the  office  to- 
morrow and  draft  an  agreement." 

They  shook  hands  to  bind  the  bargain,  grinning  at 
each  other  a  trifle  self-consciously. 

"  Have  you  a  suitable  boat.''  "  Stubby  asked  after  a 
little. 

"  No,"  MacRae  admitted.  "  But  I  have  been  looking 
around.  I  find  that  I  can  charter  one  cheaper  than  I 
can  build  —  until  such  time  as  I  make  enough  to  build 
a  fast,  able  carrier." 

"I'll  charter  you  one,"  Stubby  offered.  "That's 
where  part  of  our  money  is  uselessly  tied  up,  in  ex- 
pensive boats  that  never  carried  their  weight  in  salmon. 
I  'm  going  to  sell  two  fifty-footers  and  a  seine  boat. 
There's  one  called  the  Blackbird,  fast,  seaworthy  rig, 
you  can  have  at  a  nominal  rate." 

"All  right,"  MacRae  nodded.  "By  chartering  I 
have  enough  cash  in  hand  to  finance  the  buying.     I  'm 


74  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

going  to  start  as  soon  as  the  bluebacks  come  and  run 
fresh  fish,  if  I  can  make  suitable  connections." 

Stubby  grinned. 

"I  can  fix  that  too,"  he  said.  "I  happen  to  own 
some  shares  in  the  Terminal  Fish  Company.  The 
pater  organized  it  to  give  Vancouver  people  cheap  fish, 
but  somehow  it  didn't  work  as  he  intended.  It's  a 
fairly  strong  concern.  I'll  introduce  you.  They'll 
buy  your  salmon,  and  they'll  treat  you  right." 

"  And  now,"  Stubby  rose  and  stretched  his  one  good 
arm  and  the  other  that  was  visibly  twisted  and  scarred 
between  wrist  and  elbow,  above  his  head,  "let's  go 
downstairs  and  prattle.  I  see  a  car  in  front,  and  I  hear 
twittering  voices." 

Halfway  down  the  stairs  Stubby  halted  and  laid  a 
hand  on  MacRae's  arm. 

*'  Old  Horace  is  a  two-fisted  old  buccaneer,"  he  said. 
*'  And  I  don't  go  much  on  Norman.  But  I  '11  say 
Betty  Gower  is  some  girl.  What  do  you  think.  Silent 
John?" 

And  Jack  MacRae  had  to  admit  that  Betty  was. 
Oddly  enough.  Stubby  Abbott  had  merely  put  into 
words  an  impression  to  which  MacRae  himself  was 
slowly  and  reluctantly  subscribing. 


CHAPTER   Vn 

Sea  Boots  and  Salmon 

Feom  November  to  April  the  British  Columbian  coast 
is  a  region  of  weeping  skies,  of  intermittent  frosts  and 
fog,  and  bursts  of  sleety  snow.  The  frosts,  fogs,  and 
snow  squalls  are  the  punctuation  points,  so  to  speak, 
of  the  eternal  rain.  Murky  vapors  eddy  and  swirl  along 
the  coast.  The  sun  hides  behind  gray  banks  of  cloud, 
the  shining  face  of  him  a  rare  miracle  bestowed  upon 
the  sight  of  men  as  a  promise  that  bright  days  and 
blossoming  flowers  will  come  again.  When  they  do 
come  the  coast  is  a  pleasant  country.  The  mountains 
reveal  themselves,  duskily  green  upon  the  lower  slopes, 
their  sky-piercing  summits  crowned  with  snow  caps 
which  endure  until  the  sun  comes  to  his  full  strength  in 
July.  The  Gulf  is  a  vista  of  purple-distant  shore  and 
island,  of  shimmering  sea.  And  the  fishermen  come  out 
of  winter  quarters  to  overhaul  boats  and  gear  against 
the  first  salmon  run. 

The  blueback,  a  lively  and  toothsome  fish,  about 
which  rages  an  ichthyological  argument  as  to  whether 
he  is  a  distant  species  of  the  salmon  tribe  or  merely  a 
half-grown  coho,  is  the  first  to  show  in  great  schools. 
The  spring  salmon  is  always  in  the  Gulf,  but  the  spring 
is  a  finny  mystery  with  no  known  rule  for  his  comings 
and  goings,  nor  his  numbers.  All  the  others,  the  blue- 
back,  the  sockeye,  the  hump,  the  coho,  and  the  dog  sal- 
mon, run  in  the  order  named.    They  can  be  reckoned  on 


76  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

as  a  man  reckons  on  changes  of  the  moon.  These  are  the 
mainstay  of  the  salmon  canners.  Upon  their  taking  for- 
tunes have  been  built  ^ — and  squandered  —  men  have 
lived  and  died,  loved  and  hated,  gone  hungry  and  dressed 
their  women  in  silks  and  furs.  The  can  of  pink  meat 
some  inland  chef  dresses  meticulously  with  parsley  and 
sauces  may  have  cost  some  fisherman  his  life;  a  multi- 
plicity qf  cases  of  salmon  may  have  produced  a  divorce 
in  the  packer's  household.  We  eat  this  fine  red  fish  and 
heave  its  container  into  the  garbage  tin,  with  no  care 
for  the  tragedy  or  humors  that  have  attended  its  getting 
for  us. 

In  the  spring,  when  life  takes  on  a  new  prompting, 
the  blueback  salmon  shows  first  in  the  Gulf.  He  cannot 
be  taken  by  net  or  bait,  —  unless  the  bait  be  a  small  live 
herring.  He  may  only  be  taken  in  commercial  quan- 
tities by  a  spinner  or  a  wobbling  spoon  hook  of  silver 
or  brass  or  copper  drawn  through  the  water  at  slow 
speed.  The  dainty  gear  of  the  trout  spinner  gave  birth 
to  the  trolling  fleets  of  the  Pacific  Coast. 

At  first  the  schools  pass  into  the  Straits  of  San  Juan. 
Here  the  joint  fleets  of  British  Columbia  and  of  Puget 
Sound  begin  to  harry  them.  A  week  or  ten  days  later 
the  vanguard  will  be  off  Nanaimo.  And  in  another 
week  they  will  be  breaking  water  like  trout  in  a  still 
pool  around  the  rocky  base  of  the  Ballenas  Light  and 
the  kelp  beds  and  reefs  of  Squitty  Island. 

By  the  time  they  were  there,  in  late  April,  there  were 
twenty  local  power  boats  to  begin  taking  them,  for  Jack 
MacRae  made  the  rounds  of  Squitty  to  tell  the  fisher- 
men that  he  was  putting  on  a  carrier  to  take  the  first 
run  of  blueback  to  Vancouver  markets. 

They  were  a  trifle  pessimistic.  Other  buyers  had 
tried  it,  men  gambling  on  a  shoestring  for  a  stake  in  the 


SEA  BOOTS  AND  SALMON  •    77 

fish  trade,  buyers  unable  to  make  regular  trips,  whereby 
there  was  a  tale  of  many  salmon  rotted  in  waiting  fish 
holds,  through  depending  on  a  carrier  that  did  not 
come.  What  was  the  use  of  burning  fuel,  of  tearing 
their  fingers  with  the  gear,  of  catching  fish  to  rot? 
Better  to  let  them  swim. 

But  since  the  Folly  Bay  cannery  never  opened  until 
the  fish  ran  to  greater  size  and  number,  the  fishermen, 
chafing  against  inaction  after  an  idle  winter,  took  a 
chance  and  trolled  for  Jack  MacRae. 

To  the  troUers'  surprise  they  found  themselves  deal- 
ing with  a  new  type  of  independent  buyer,  —  a  man  who 
could  and  did  make  his  market  trips  with  clocklike 
precision.  If  MacRae  left  Squitty  with  a  load  on 
Monday,  saying  that  he  would  be  at  Squitty  Cove  or 
Jenkins  Island  or  Scottish  Bay  by  Tuesday  evening, 
he  was  there. 

He  managed  it  by  grace  of  an  able  sea  boat,  engined 
to  drive  through  sea  and  wind,  and  by  the  nerve  and 
endurance  to  drive  her  in  any  weather.  There  were 
times  when  the  Gulf  spread  placid  as  a  mill  pond. 
There  were  trips  when  he  drove  through  with  three 
thousand  salmon  under  battened  hatches,  his  decks 
awash  from  boarding  seas,  ten  and  twelve  and  fourteen 
hours  of  rough-and-tumble  work  that  brought  him  into 
the  Narrows  and  the  docks  inside  with  smarting  eyes 
and  tired  muscles,  his  head  splitting  from  the  pound 
and  clank  of  the  engine  and  the  fumes  of  gas  and 
burned  oil. 

It  was  work,  strain  of  mind  and  body,  long  hours 
filled  with  discomfort.  But  MacRae  had  never  shrunk 
from  things  like  that.  He  was  aware  that  few  things 
worth  while  come  easy.  The  world,  so  far  as  he  knew, 
seldom  handed  a  man  a  fortune  done  up  in  tissue  paper 


78  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

merely  because  he  happened  to  crave  its  possession.  He 
was  young  and  eager  to  do.  There  was  a  reasonable 
satisfaction  in  the  doing,  even  of  the  disagreeable,  dirty 
tasks  necessary,  in  beating  tlie  risks  he  sometimes  had 
to  run.  There  was  a  secret  triumph  in  overcoming  diffi- 
culties as  they  arose.  And  he  had  an  object,  which,  if 
it  did  not  always  lie  in  the  foreground  of  his  mind,  he 
was  nevertheless  keen  on  attaining. 

The  risks  and  work  and  strain,  perhaps  because  he 
put  so  much  of  himself  into  the  thing,  paid  from  the 
beginning  more  than  he  had  dared  hope.  He  made  a 
hundred  dollars  his  first  trip,  paid  the  troUers  five  cents 
a  fish  more  on  the  second  trip  and  cleared  a  hundred 
and  fifty.  In  the  second  week  of  his  venture  he  struck 
a  market  almost  bare  of  fresh  salmon  with  thirty-seven 
hundred  shining  bluebacks  in  his  hold.  He  made  seven 
hundred  dollars  on  that  single  cargo. 

A  Greek  buyer  followed  the  Blackbird  out  through 
the  Narrows  that  trip.  MacRae  beat  him  two  hours  to 
the  trolling  fleet  at  Squitty,  a  fleet  that  was  growing 
in  numbers. 

"  Bluebacks  are  thirty-five  cents,"  he  said  to  the  first 
man  who  ranged  alongside  to  deliver.  "  And  I  want  to 
tell  you  something  that  you  can  talk  over  with  the  rest 
of  the  crowd.  I  have  a  market  for  every  fish  this  bunch 
can  catch.  If  I  can't  handle  them  with  the  Blachhirdy 
I  '11  put  on  another  boat.  I  'm  not  here  to  buy  fish  just 
till  the  Folly  Bay  cannery  opens.  I  '11  be  making  regu- 
lar trips  to  the  end  of  the  salmon  season.  My  price  will 
be  as  good  as  anybody's,  better  than  some.  If  Gower 
gets  your  bluebacks  this  season  for  twenty-five  cents, 
it  will  be  because  you  want  to  make  him  a  present. 
Meantime,  there  's  another  buyer  an  hour  behind  me. 
I  don't  know  what  he  '11  pay.     But  whatever  he  pays 


SEA  BOOTS  AND  SALMON  79 

there  aren't  enough  salmon  being  caught  here  yet  to 
keep  two  carriers  running.  You  can  figure  it  out  for 
yourself.'' 

MacRae  thought  he  knew  his  men.  Nor  was  his 
judgment  in  error.  The  Greek  hung  around.  In 
twenty-four  hours  he  got  three  hundred  salmon.  Mac- 
Rae loaded  nearly  three  thousand. 

Once  or  twice  after  that  he  had  competitive  buyers  in 
Squitty  Cove  and  the  various  rendezvous  of  the  trolling 
fleet.  But  the  fishermen  had  a  loyalty  born  of  shrewd 
reckoning.  They  knew  from  experience  the  way  of 
the  itinerant  buyer.  They  knew  MacRae.  Many  of 
them  had  known  his  father.  If  Jack  MacRae  had  a 
market  for  all  the  salmon  he  could  buy  on  the  Gower 
grounds  all  season,  they  saw  where  Folly  Bay  would 
buy  no  fish  in  the  old  take-it-or-leave  it  fashion.  They 
were  keenly  alive  to  the  fact  that  they  were  getting 
mid- July  prices  in  June,  that  Jack  MacRae  was  the 
first  buyer  who  had  not  tried  to  hold  down  prices  by 
pulling  a  poor  mouth  and  telling  fairy  tales  of  poor 
markets  in  town.  He  had  jumped  prices  before  there 
was  any  competitive  spur.  They  admired  young  Mac- 
Rae.    He  had  nerve ;  he  kept  his  word. 

Wherefore  it  did  not  take  them  long  to  decide  that 
he  was  a  good  man  to  keep  going.  As  a  result  of  this 
decision  other  casual  buyers  got  few  fish  even  when  they 
met  MacRae's  price. 

When  he  had  run  a  little  over  a  month  MacRae  took 
stock.  He  paid  the  Crow  Harbor  Canning  Company, 
which  was  Stubby  Abbott's  trading  name,  two  hundred 
and  fifty  a  month  for  charter  of  the  Blackbird.  He  had 
operating  outlay  for  gas,  oil,  crushed  ice,  and  wages 
for  Vincent  Ferrara,  whom  he  took  on  when  he  reached 
the  limit  of  single-handed  endurance.     Over  and  above 


8o  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

these  expenses  he  hp,d  cleared  twenty-six  hundred  dollars. 

That  was  only  a  beginning  he  knew,  —  only  a  begin- 
ning of  profits  and  of  work.  He  purposely  thrust  the 
taking  of  salmon  on  young  Ferrara,  let  him  handle  the 
cash,  tally  in  the  fish,  watched  Vincent  nonchalantly 
chuck  out  overripe  salmon  that  careless  trollers  would 
as  nonchalantly  heave  in  for  fresh  ones  if  they  could  get 
away  with  it.  For  Jack  MacRae  had  it  in  his  mind  to 
go  as  far  and  as  fast  as  he  could  while  the  going  was 
good.  That  meant  a  second  carrier  on  the  run  as  soon 
as  the  Folly  Bay  cannery  opened,  and  it  meant  that  he 
must  have  in  charge  of  the  second  boat  an  able  man 
whom  he  could  trust.  There  was  no  question  about 
trusting  Vincent  Ferrara.  It  was  only  a  matter  of 
his  ability  to  handle  the  j  ob,  and  that  he  demonstrated 
to  MacRae's  complete  satisfaction. 

Early  in  June  MacRae  went  to  Stubby  Abbott. 

"Have  you  sold  the  Bluebird  yet?"  he  asked. 

**  I  want  to  let  three  of  those  Bird  boats  go,"  Stubby 
told  him.  "  I  don't  need  'em.  They  're  dead  capital. 
But  I  haven't  made  a  sale  yet." 

"  Charter  me  the  Bluebird  on  the  same  terms,"  Jack 
proposed. 

"You're  on.     Things  must  be  going  good." 

"  Not  too  bad,"  MacRae  admitted. 

"Folly  Bay  opens  the  twentieth.  We  open  July 
first,"  Stubby  said  abruptly.  "How  many  bluebacks 
are  you  going  to  get  for  us  ?  " 

"  Just  about  all  that  are  caught  around  Squitty 
Island,"  MacRae  said  quietly.  "That's  why  I  want 
another  carrier." 

"  Huh ! "  Stubby  grunted.  His  tone  was  slightly 
incredulous.  "  You  '11  have  to  go  some.  Wish  you  luck 
though.     More  you  get  the  better  for  me." 


SEA  BOOTS  AND  SALMON  8i 

"  I  expect  to  deliver  sixty  thousand  bluebacks  to  Crow 
Harbor  in  July,"  MacRae  said. 

Stubby  stared  at  him.    His  eyes  twinkled. 

"If  you  can  do  that  in  July,  and  in  August  too," 
he  said,  "  I  '11  give  you  the  Bluebird.''^ 

''  No,"  MacRae  smiled.     "  I  '11  buy  her." 

"  Where  will  Folly  Bay  get  off  if  you  take  that  many 
fish  away.?"    Stubby  reflected. 

"Don't  know.  And  I  don't  care  a  hoot."  MacRae 
shrugged  his  shoulders.  "  I  'm  fairly  sure  I  can  do  it. 
You  don't  care?  " 

"Do  I?  I'U  shout  to  the  world  I  don't,"  Stubby 
replied.  "  It 's  self-preservation  with  me.  Let  old 
Horace  look  out  for  himself.  He  had  his  fingers  in  the 
pie  while  we  were  in  France.  I  don't  have  to  have  four 
hundred  per  cent,  profit  to  do  business.  Get  the  fish  if 
you  can.  Jack,  old  boy,  even  if  it  busts  old  Horace. 
Which  it  won't  —  and,  as  I  told  you,  lack  of  them  may 
bust  me." 

"By  the  way,"  Stubby  said  as  MacRae  rose  to  go, 
"don't  you  ever  have  an  hour  to  spare  in  town?  You 
have  n't  been  out  at  the  house  for  six  weeks." 

MacRae  held  out  his  hands.  They  were  red  and  cut 
and  scarred,  roughened,  and  sore  from  salt  water  and 
ice-handling  and  fish  slime. 

"Wouldn't  they  look  well  clasping  a  wafer  and  a 
teacup,"  he  laughed.  "I'm  working.  Stub.  When  I 
have  an  hour  to  spare  I  lie  down  and  sleep.  If  I 
stopped  to  play  every  time  I  came  to  town  —  do  you 
think  you'd  get  your  sixty  thousand  bluebacks  in 
July?" 

Stubby  looked  at  MacRae  a  second,  at  his  work-torn 
hands  and  weary  eyes. 

"  I  guess  you  're  right,"   he  said  slowly.     "  But  the 


82  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

old  stone  house  will  still  be  up  on  the  comer  when  the 
salmon  run  is  over.     Don't  forget  that." 

MacRae  went  off  to  Coal  Harbor  to  take  over  the 
second  carrier.  And  he  wondered  as  he  went  if  it  would 
all  be  such  clear  sailing,  if  it  were  possible  that  at  the 
first  thrust  he  had  found  an  open  crack  in  Gower's 
armor  through  which  he  could  prick  the  man  and  make 
him  squirm. 

He  looked  at  his  hands.  When  they  fingered  death 
as  a  daily  task  they  had  been  soft,  white,  delicate, — 
dainty  instruments  equally  fit  for  the  manipulation  of 
aerial  controls,  machine  guns  or  teacups.  Why  should 
honest  work  prevent  a  man  from  meeting  pleasant  peo- 
ple amid  pleasant  surroundings?  Well,  it  was  not  the 
work  itself,  it  was  simply  the  effects  of  that  gross 
labor.  On  the  American  continent,  at  least,  a  man  did 
not  lose  caste  by  following  any  honest  occupation, — 
only  he  could  not  work  with  the  workers  and  flutter 
with  the  butterflies.  MacRae,  walking  down  the  street, 
communing  with  himself,  knew  that  he  must  pay  a  pen- 
alty for  working  with  his  hands.  If  he  were  a  drone  in 
uniform  —  necessarily  a  drone  since  the  end  of  war  — 
he  could  dance  and  play,  flirt  with  pretty  girls,  be  a 
welcome  guest  in  great  houses,  make  the  heroic  past  pay 
social  dividends. 

It  took  nearly  as  much  courage  and  endurance  to 
work  as  it  had  taken  to  fight ;  indeed  it  took  rather  more, 
at  times,  to  keep  on  working.  Theoretically  he  should 
not  lose  caste.  Yet  MacRae  knew  he  would,  —  unless  he 
made  a  barrel  of  money.  There  had  been  stray  straws 
in  the  past  month.  There  were,  it  seemed,  very  nice 
people  who  could  not  quite  understand  why  an  officer 
and  a  gentleman  should  do  work  that  was  n't, — well,  not 
even  clean.     Not  clean  in  the  purely  objective,  physi- 


SEA  BOOTS  AND  SALMON  83 

cal  sense,  like  banking  or  brokerage,  or  teaching,  or 
any  of  those  semi-genteel  occupations  which  permit 
people  to  make  a  living  without  straining  their  backs 
or  soiling  their  hands.  He  wasn't  even  sure  that 
Stubby  Abbott —  MacRae  was  ashamed  of  his  cynicism 
when  he  got  that  far.  Stubby  was  a  real  man.  Even  if 
he  needed  a  man  or  a  man's  activities  in  his  business 
Stubby  would  n't  cultivate  that  man  socially  merely  be- 
cause he  needed  his  producing  capacity. 

The  solace  for  long  hours  and  aching  flesh  and  sleep- 
wear^  eyes  was  a  glimpse  of  concrete  reward,  —  money 
which  meant  power,  power  to  repay  a  debt,  opportunity 
to  repay  an  ancient  score.  It  seemed  to  Jack  MacRae 
that  his  personal  honor  was  involved  in  getting  back  all 
that  broad  sweep  of  land  which  his  father  had  claimed 
from  the  wilderness,  that  he  must  exact  an  eye  for  an 
eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth.  That  was  the  why  of  his 
unceasing  energy,  his  uncomplaining  endurance  of  long 
hours  in  sea  boots,  the  impatient  facing  of  storms  that 
threatened  to  delay.  Man  strives  under  the  spur  of  a 
vision,  a  deep  longing,  an  imperative  squaring  of  needs 
with  desires.  MacRae  moved  under  the  whip  of  all 
three. 

He  was  quite  sanguine  that  he  would  succeed  in  this 
undertaking.  But  he  had  not  looked  much  beyt)nd  the 
first  line  of  trenches  which  he  planned  to  storm.  They 
did  not  seem  to  him  particularly  formidable.  The 
Scotch  had  been  credited  with  uncanny  knowledge  of  the 
future.  Jack  MacRae,  however,  though  his  Highland 
blood  ran  undiluted,  had  no  such  gift  of  prescience.  He 
did  not  know  that  the  highway  of  modem  industry  is 
strewn  with  the  casualties  of  commercial  warfare. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

Vested  Rights 

A  SMALL  balcony  over  the  porch  of  Gower's  summer  cot- 
tage commanded  a  wide  sweep  of  the  Gulf  south  and 
east.  That  was  one  reason  he  had  built  there.  He 
liked  to  overlook  the  sea,  the  waters  out  of  which  he  had 
taken  a  fortune,  the  highway  of  his  collecting  boats. 
He  had  to  keep  in  touch  with  the  Folly  Bay  cannery 
while  the  rush  of  the  pack  was  on.  But  he  was  getting 
more  fastidious  as  he  grew  older,  and  he  no  longer 
relished  the  odors  of  the  cannery.  There  were  other 
places  nearer  the  cannery  than  Cradle  Bay,  if  none 
more  sightly,  where  he  could  have  built  a  summer  house. 
People  wondered  why  he  chose  the  point  that  frowned 
over  Poor  Man's  Rock.  Even  his  own  family  had  ques- 
tioned his  judgment.  Particularly  his  wife.  She  com- 
plained of  the  isolation.  She  insisted  on  a  houseful  of 
people  when  she  was  there,  and  as  Vancouver  was  full  of 
eligible  week-enders  of  both  sexes  her  wish  was  always 
gratified.  And  no  one  except  Betty  Gower  ever  knew 
that  merely  to  sit  looking  out  on  the  Gulf  from  that 
vantage  point  afforded  her  father  some  inscrutable 
satisfaction. 

On  a  day  in  mid-July  Horace  Gower  stepped  out  on 
this  balcony.  He  carried  in  his  hand  a  pair  of  prism 
binoculars.  He  took  a  casual  look  around.  Then  he 
put  the  glasses  to  his  eyes  and  scanned  the  Gulf  with  a 
slow,  searching  sweep.     At  first  sight  it  seemed  empty. 


VESTED  RIGHTS  85 

Then  far  eastward  toward  Vancouver  his  glass  picked 
up  two  formless  dots  which  alternately  showed  and 
disappeared. 

Gower  put  down  the  glasses,  seated  himself  in  a  grass 
chair,  lighted  a  cigar  and  leaned  back,  looking  imper- 
sonally down  on  Point  Old  and  the  Rock.  A  big,  slow 
swell  rolled  up  oif  the  Gulf,  breaking  with  a  precisely 
spaced  boom  along  the  cliffs.  For  forty-eight  hours 
a  southeaster  had  swept  the  sea,  that  rare  phenomenon 
of  a  summer  gale  which  did  not  blow  itself  out  between 
suns.  This  had  been  a  wild  tantrum,  driving  every- 
thing of  small  tonnage  to  the  nearest  shelter,  even  de- 
laying the  big  coasters. 

One  of  these,  trailing  black  smoke  from  two  funnels, 
lifting  white  superstructure  of  cabins  high  above  her 
main  deck,  standing  bold  and  clear  in  the  mellow  sun- 
shine, steamed  out  of  the  fairway  between  Squitty  and 
Vancouver  Island.  But  she  gained  scant  heed  from 
Gower.  His  eyes  kept  turning  to  where  those  distant 
specks  showed  briefly  between  periods  in  the  hollows  of 
the  sea.  They  drew  nearer.  Gower  finished  his  cigar 
in  leisurely  fashion.  He  focused  the  glass  again.  He 
grunted  something  unintelligible.  They  were  what  he 
fully  expected  to  behold  as  soon  as  the  southeaster 
ceased  to  whip  the  Gulf,  —  the  Bluebird  and  the  Black- 
bird, Jack  MacRae's  two  salmon  carriers.  They  were 
walking  up  to  Squitty  in  eight-knot  boots.  Through 
his  glass  Gower  watched  them  lift  and  fall,  lurch  and 
yaw,  running  with  short  bursts  of  speed  on  the  crest  of 
a  wave,  laboring  heavily  in  the  trough,  plowing  steadily 
up  through  uneasy  waters  to  take  the  salmon  that 
should  go  to  feed  the  hungry  machines  at  Folly  Bay. 

Gower  laid  aside  the  glasses.  He  smoked  a  second 
cigar  down  to  a  stub,  resting  his  plump  hands  on  his 


86  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

plump  stomach.  He  resembled  a  thoughtful  Billiken 
in  white  flannels,  a  round-faced,  florid,  middle-aged 
Billiken.  By  that  time  the  two  Bird  boats  had  come 
up  and  parted  on  the  head  of  Squitty.  The  Bluebird, 
captained  by  Vin  Ferrara,  headed  into  the  Cove.  The 
Blackbird,  slashing  along  with  a  bone  in  her  teeth, 
rounded  Poor  Man's  Rock,  cut  across  the  mouth  of 
Cradle  Bay,  and  stood  on  up  the  western  shore. 

"He  knows  every  pot-hole  where  a  troller  can  lie. 
He  's  not  afraid  of  wind  or  sea  or  work.  No  wonder  he 
gets  the  fish.     Those  damned — " 

Gower  cut  his  soliloquy  off  in  the  middle  to  watch  the 
Blackbird  slide  out  of  sight  behind  a  point.  He  knew 
all  about  Jack  MacRae's  operations,  the  wide  swath 
he  was  cutting  in  the  matter  of  blueback  salmon.  The 
Folly  Bay  showing  to  date  was  a  pointed  reminder. 
Gower's  cannery  foreman  and  fish  collectors  gave  him 
profane  accounts  of  MacRae's  indefatigable  raiding, 
—  as  it  suited  them  to  regard  his  operations.  What 
Gower  did  not  know  he  made  it  his  business  to  find  out. 
He  sat  now  in  his  grass  chair,  a  short,  compact  body  of 
a  man,  with  a  heavy-jawed,  powerful  face  frowning  in 
abstraction.  Gower  looked  younger  than  his  fifty-six 
years.  There  was  little  gray  in  his  light-brown  hair. 
His  blue  eyes  were  clear  and  piercing.  The  thick 
roundness  of  his  body  was  not  altogether  composed  of 
useless  tissue.  Even  considered  superficially  he  looked 
what  he  really  was,  what  he  had  been  for  many  years,  — 
a  man  accustomed  to  getting  things  done  according  to 
his  desire.  He  did  not  look  like  a  man  who  would  fight 
with  crude  weapons  —  such  as  a  pike  pole  —  but  never- 
theless there  was  the  undeniable  impression  of  latent 
force,  of  aggressive  possibilities,  of  the  will  and  the 
ability  to  rudely  dispose  of  things  which  might  become 


VESTED  RIGHTS  87 

obstacles  in  his  way.  And  the  current  history  of  him  in 
the  Gulf  of  Georgia  did  not  belie  such  an  impression. 

He  left  the  balcony  at  last.  He  appeared  next  mov- 
ing, with  the  stumpy,  ungraceful  stride  peculiar  to  the 
short  and  thick-bodied,  down  the  walk  to  a  float.  From 
this  he  hailed  the  Arrow,  and  a  boy  came  in,  rowing  a 
dinghy. 

When  Gower  reached  the  cruiser's  deck  he  cocked 
his  ear  at  voices  in  the  after  cabin.  He  put  his  head 
through  the  companion  hatch.  Betty  Gower  and  Nelly 
Abbott  were  curled  up  on  a  berth,  chuckling  to  each 
other  over  some  exchange  of  confidences. 

"Thought  you  were  ashore,"  Gower  grunted. 

"  Oh,  the  rest  of  the  crowd  went  off  on  a  hike  into  the 
woods,  so  we  came  out  here  to  look  around.  Nelly 
hasn't  seen  the  Arrow  inside  since  it  was  done  over," 
Betty  replied. 

"  I  'm  going  to  Folly  Bay,"  Gower  said.  "  Will  you 
go  ashore.'' " 

"  Far  from  such,"  Betty  returned.  "  I  'd  as  soon  go 
to  the  cannery  as  anywhere.    Can't  we,  daddy.''  " 

"  Oh,  yes.    Bit  of  a  swell  though.    You  may  be  sick." 

Betty  laughed.  That  was  a  standing  joke  between 
them.  She  had  never  been  seasick.  Nelly  Abbott  de- 
clared that  if  there  was  anything  she  loved  it  was  to 
ride  the  dead  swell  that  ran  after  a  storm.  They  came 
up  out  of  the  cabin  to  watch  the  mooring  line  cast  off, 
and  to  wave  handkerchiefs  at  the  empty  cottage  porches 
as  the  Arrow  backed  and  straightened  and  swept  out 
of  the  bay. 

The  Arrow  was  engined  to  justify  her  name.  But 
the  swell  was  heavier  than  it  looked  from  shore.  No 
craft,  even  a  sixty-footer  built  for  speed,  finds  her 
Tspeed  lines  a  thing  of  comfort  in  heavy  going.     Until 


88  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

the  Arrow  passed  into  the  lee  of  an  island  group  half- 
way along  Squitty  she  made  less  time  than  a  fishing 
boat,  and  she  rolled  and  twisted  uncomfortably.  If 
Horace  Gower  had  a  mind  to  reach  Folly  Bay  before 
the  Blackbird  he  could  not  have  done  so.  However,  he 
gave  no  hint  of  such  intention.  He  kept  to  the  deck. 
The  girls  stayed  below  until  the  big  cruiser  struck 
easier  going  and  a  faster  gait.   Then  they  joined  Gower. 

The  three  of  them  stood  by  the  rail  just  abaft  the 
pilot  house  when  the  Arrow  turned  into  the  half-mile 
breadth  of  Folly  Bay.  The  cannery  loomed  white  on 
shore,  with  a  couple  of  purse  seiners  and  a  tender  or 
two  tied  at  the  slips.  And  four  hundred  yards  off 
the  cannery  wharf  the  Blackbird  had  dropped  anchor 
and  lay  now,  a  dozen  trolling  boats  clustered  about  her 
to  deliver  fish. 

"  Slow  up  and  stop  abreast  of  that  buyer,"  Gower 
ordered. 

The  Arrow^s  skipper  brought  his  vessel  to  a  stand- 
still within  a  boat-length  of  the  Blackbird. 

"Why,  that's  Jack  MacRae,"  Nelly  Abbott  ex- 
claimed.    "  Hoo-hoo,  Johnny ! " 

She  waved  both  hands  for  good  measure.  MacRae, 
bareheaded,  sleeves  rolled  above  his  elbows,  standing  in 
hip  boots  of  rubber  on  a  deck  wet  and  slippery  with 
water  and  fish  slime,  amid  piles  of  gleaming  salmon, 
recognized  her  easily  enough.  He  waved  greeting,  but 
his  gaze  only  for  that  one  recognizing  instant  left  the 
salmon  that  were  landing  flop,  flop  on  the  Blackbird's 
deck  out  of  a  troller's  fish  well.  He  made  out  a  slip, 
handed  the  troUer  some  currency.  There  was  a  brief 
exchange  of  words  between  them.  The  man  nodded, 
pushed  off  his  boat.  Instantly  another  edged  into  the 
vacant   place,      Salmon   began   to    fall    on    the   deck, 


VESTED  RIGHTS  89 

heaved  up  on  a  picaroon.  At  the  other  end  of  the  fish 
hold  another  of  the  Ferrara  boys  was  tallying  in  fish. 

"  Old  crab,"  Nelly  Abbott  murmured.  "  He  does  n't 
even  look  at  us." 

"He's  counting  salmon,  silly,"  Betty  explained- 
"How  can  he.?" 

There  was  no  particular  inflection  in  her  voice. 
Nevertheless  Horace  Gower  shot  a  sidelong  glance  at 
his  daughter.  She  also  waved  a  hand  pleasantly  to 
Jack  MacRae,  who  had  faced  about  now. 

"  Why  don't  you  say  you  're  glad  to  see  us,  old 
dear?"  Nelly  Abbott  suggested  bluntly,  and  smiling 
so  that  all  her  white  teeth  gleamed  and  her  eyes  twinkled 
mischievously. 

"  Tickled  to  death,"  MacRae  called  back.  He  went 
through  the  pantomime  of  shaking  hands  with  himself. 
His  lips  parted  in  a  smile.  "  But  I  'm  the  busiest  thing 
afloat  right  now.    See  you  later." 

"  Nerve,"  Horace  Gower  muttered  under  his  breath. 

"  Not  if  we  see  you  first,"  Nelly  Abbott  retorted. 

"  It 's  not  likely  you  will,"  MacRae  laughed. 

He  turned  back  to  his  work.  The  fisherman  along^ 
side  was  tall  and  surly  looking,  a  leathery-faced  indi- 
vidual with  a  marked  scowl.  He  heaved  half  a  dozen 
salmon  up  on  the  Blackbird.  Then  he  climbed  up  him- 
self. He  towered  over  Jack  MacRae,  and  MacRae  was 
not  exactly  a  small  man.  He  said  something,  his  hands 
on  his  hips.  MacRae  looked  at  him.  He  seemed  to  be 
making  some  reply.  And  he  stepped  back  from  the  man. 
Every  other  fisherman  turned  his  face  toward  the  Black- 
bird*s  deck.    Their  clattering  talk  stopped  short. 

The  man  leaned  forward.  His  hands  left  his  hips, 
drew  into  doubled  fists,  extended  threateningly.  He 
took  a  step  toward  MacRae. 


90  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

And  MacRae  suddenly  lunged  forward,  as  if  pro- 
pelled by  some  invisible  spring  of  tremendous  force. 
With  incredible  swiftness  his  left  hand  and  then  his 
right  shot  at  the  man's  face.  The  two  blows  sounded 
like  two  open-handed  smacks.  But  the  fisherman 
sagged,  went  lurching  backward.  His  heels  caught  on 
the  Blackbird's^  bulwark  and  he  pitched  backward  head- 
first into  the  hold  of  his  own  boat. 

MacRae  picked  up  the  salmon  and  flung  them  one 
by  one  after  the  man,  with  no  great  haste,  but  with  little 
care  where  they  fell,  for  one  or  two  spattered  against 
the  fellow's  face  as  he  clawed  up  out  of  his  own  hold. 
There  was  a  smear  of  red  on  his  lips. 

"Oh!     My  goodness  gracious,  sakes  alive!" 

Nelly  Abbott  grasped  Betty  by  the  arm  and  mur- 
mured these  expletives  as  much  in  a  spirit  of  deviltry  as 
of  shock.     Her  eyes  danced. 

"  Did  you  see  that? "  she  whispered.  "  I  never 
saw  two  men  fight  before.  I  'd  hate  to  have  Jack  Mac- 
Rae hit  m^." 

But  Betty  was  holding  her  breath,  for  MacRae  had 
picked  up  a  twelve-foot  pike  pole,  a  thing  with  an  ugly 
point  and  a  hook  of  iron  on  its  tip.  He  only  used  it, 
however,  to  shove  away  the  boat  containing  the  man  he 
had  so  savagely  smashed.  And  while  he  did  that  Gower 
curtly  issued  an  order,  and  the  Arrow  slid  on  to  the 
cannery  wharf. 

Nelly  went  below  for  something.  Betty  stood  by  the 
rail,  staring  back  thoughtfully,  unaware  that  her  father 
was  keenly  watching  the  look  on  her  face,  with  an  odd 
expression  in  his  own  eyes. 

"  You  saw  quite  a  lot  of  young  MacRae  last  spring, 
did  n't  you  ?  "  he  asked  abruptly.    "  Do  you  like  him  ?  " 

A  faint  touch  of  color  leaped  into  her  cheeks.     She 


VESTED  RIGHTS  91 

met  her  father's  glance  with  an  inquiring  one  of  her 
own, 

"Well  — yes.  Rather,"  she  said  at  last.  "He's  a 
nice  boy." 

"Better  not,"  Gower  rumbled.  His  frown  grew 
deeper.  His  teeth  clamped  a  cigar  in  one  corner  of  his 
mouth  at  an  aggressive  angle.  "Granted  that  he  is 
what  you  call  a  nice  boy.  I  '11  admit  he 's  good-looking 
and  that  he  dances  well.  And  he  seems  to  pack  a  punch 
up  his  sleeve.  I  'd  suggest  that  you  don't  cultivate  any 
romantic  fancy  for  him.  Because  he 's  making  himself 
a  nuisance  in  my  business  —  and  I'm  going  to  smash 
him." 

Gower  turned  away.  If  he  had  lingered  he  might 
have  observed  unmistakable  signs  of  temper.  Betty 
flew  storm  signals  from  cheek  and  eye.  She  looked  after 
her  father  with  something  akin  to  defiance,  likewise  with 
an  air  of  astonishment. 

"As  if  I — "  she  left  the  whispered  sentence  un- 
finished. 

She  perched  herself  on  the  mahogany-capped  rail, 
and  while  she  waited  for  Nelly  Abbott  she  gave  her- 
self up  to  thinking  of  herself  and  her  father  and  her 
father's  amazing  warning  which  carried  a  veiled 
threat,  —  an  open  threat  so  far  as  Jack  MacRae  was 
concerned.    Why  should  he  cut  loose  like  that  on  her? 

She  stared  thoughtfully  at  the  Blackbird,  marked 
the  trollers  slipping  in  from  the  grounds  and  clustering 
around  the  chunky  carrier. 

It  might  have  interested  Mr.  Horace  Gower  could  he 
have  received  a  verbatim  report  of  his  daughter's  re- 
flections for  the  next  five  minutes.  But  whether  it 
would  have  pleased  him  it  is  hard  to  say. 


CHAPTER   IX 

The  Complexity  of  Simple  Matters 

The  army,  for  a  period  extending  over  many  months, 
had  imposed  a  rigid  discipline  on  Jack  MacRae.  The 
Air  Service  had  bestowed  upon  him  a  less  rigorous  dis- 
cipline, but  a  far  more  exacting  self-control.  He  was 
not  precisely  aware  of  it,  but  those  four  years  had  saved 
him  from  being  a  firebrand  of  sorts  in  his  present  sit- 
uation, because  there  resided  in  him  a  fiery  temper  and 
a  capacity  for  passionate  extremes,  and  those  years  in 
the  King's  uniform,  whatever  else  they  may  have  done 
for  him,  had  placed  upon  his  headlong  impulses  mani- 
fold checks,  taught  him  the  vital  necessity  of  restraint, 
the  value  of  restraint. 

If  the  war  had  made  human  life  seem  a  cheap  and 
perishable  commodity,  it  had  also  worked  to  give  men 
like  MacRae  a  high  sense  of  honor,  to  accentuate  a 
natural  distaste  for  lying  and  cheating,  for  anything 
that  was  mean,  petty,  ignoble.  Perhaps  the  Air  Service 
was  unique  in  that  it  was  at  once  the  most  dangerous 
and  the  most  democratic  and  the  most  individual  of  all 
the  organizations  that  fought  the  Germans.  It  had 
high  standards.  The  airmen  were  all  young,  the  pick 
of  the  nations,  clean,  eager,  vigorous  boys  whose  ideals 
were  still  undimmed.  They  lived  and  —  as  it  hap- 
pened—  died  in  big  moments.  They  trained  with  the 
gods  in  airy  spaces  and  became  men,  those  who  survived. 

And  the  gods  may  launch  destroying  thunderbolts,  — 


COMPLEXITY  OF  SIMPLE  MATTERS     93 

but  they  do  not  lie  or  cheat  or  steal.  An  honest  man 
may  respect  an  honest  enemy,  and  be  roused  to  mur- 
derous fury  by  a  common  rascal's  trickery. 

When  MacRae  dropped  his  hook  in  Folly  Bay  he  was 
two  days  overdue,  for  the  first  time  in  his  fish-running 
venture.  The  trollers  had  promised  to  hold  their  fish. 
The  first  man  alongside  to  deliver  reminded  him  of 
this. 

"Southeaster  held  you  up,  eh.?"  said  he.  "We 
fished  in  the  lee  off  the  top  end.  But  we  might  as  well 
have  laid  in.     Held  'em  too  long  for  you." 

"They  spoiled  before  you  could  slough  them  on  the 
cannery,  eh  ?  "  MacRae  observed. 

"  Most  of  mine  did.    They  took  some." 

"  How  many  of  your  fish  went  bad.''  "  Jack  asked. 

"  About  twenty-five,  I  guess." 

MacRae  finished  checking  the  salmon  the  fisherman 
heaved  up  on  the  deck.  He  made  out  two  slips  and 
handed  the  man  his  money. 

"  I  'm  paying  you  for  the  lost  fish,"  he  said.  "  I 
told  you  to  hold  them  for  me.  I  want  you  to  hold 
them.  If  I  can't  get  here  on  time,  it's  my  loss,  not 
yours." 

The  fisherman  looked  at  the  money  in  his  hand  and 
up  at  MacRae. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  "  you  're  the  first  buyer  I  ever  seen 
do  that.    You  're  all  right,  all  right." 

There  were  variations  of  this.  Some  of  the  trollers, 
weatherwise  old  sea-dogs,  had  foreseen  that  the  Black- 
bird could  not  face  that  blow,  and  they  had  sold  their 
fish.  Others  had  held  on.  These,  who  were  all  men 
MacRae  knew,  he  paid  according  to  their  own  estimate 
of  loss.  He  did  not  argue.  He  accepted  their  word. 
It  was  an  astonishing  experience  for  the  trolling  fleet. 


94  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

They  had  never  found  a  buyer  wiHing  to  make  good  a 
loss  of  that  kind. 

But  there  were  other  folk  afloat  besides  simple,  hon- 
est fishermen  who  would  not  lie  for  the  price  of  one 
salmon  or  forty.  When  the  Arrow  drew  abreast  and 
stopped,  a  boat  had  pushed  in  beside  the  Blackbird. 
The  fisherman  in  it  put  half  a  dozen  bluebacks  on  the 
deck  and  clambered  up  himself. 

"  You  owe  me  for  thirty  besides  them,"  he  announced. 

"How's  that?"   MacRae  asked  coolly. 

But  he  was  not  cool  inside.  He  knew  the  man,  a  pre- 
emptor  of  Folly  Bay,  a  truckler  to  the  cannery  because 
he  was  always  in  debt  to  the  cannery,  —  and  a  quarrel- 
some individual  besides,  who  took  advantage  of  his  size 
and  strength  to  browbeat  less  able  men. 

MacRae  had  got  few  salmon  off  Sam  Kaye  since  the 
cannery  opened.  He  had  never  asked  Kaye  to  hold  fish 
for  him.  He  knew  instantly  what  was  in  Kaye's  mind; 
it  had  flitted  from  one  boat  to  another  that  MacRae 
was  making  good  the  loss  of  salmon  held  for  him,  and 
Kaye  was  going  to  get  in  on  this  easy  money  if  he 
could  bluff  it  through. 

He  stood  on  the  Blackbird's  deck,  snarlingly  de- 
manding payment  for  thirty  fish.  MacRae  looked  at 
him  silently.  He  hated  brawling,  acrimonious  dispute. 
He  was  loth  to  a  common  row  at  that  moment,  because 
he  was  acutely  conscious  of  the  two  girls  watching. 
But  he  was  even  more  conscious  of  Gower's  stare  and 
the  curious  expectancy  of  the  fishermen  clustered  about 
his  stern. 

Kaye  was  simply  trying  to  do  him  out  of  fifteen 
dollars.  MacRae  knew  it.  He  knew  that  the  fishermen 
knew  it,  —  and  he  had  a  suspicion  that  Folly  Bay 
might  not  be  unaware,  or  averse,  to  Sam  Kaye  taking 


COMPLEXITY  OF  SIMPLE  MATTERS     95 

a  fall  out  of  him.  Folly  Bay  had  tried  other  unpleasant 
tricks. 

"That  doesn't  go  for  you,  Kaye,"  he  said  quietly. 
"I  know  your  game.  Get  off  my  boat  and  take  your 
fish  with  you." 

Sam  Kaye  glowered  threateningly.  He  had  cowed 
men  before  with  the  fierceness  of  his  look.  He  was  long- 
armed  and  raw-boned,  and  he  rather  fancied  himself 
in  a  rough  and  tumble.  He  was  quite  blissfully  ignorant 
that  Jack  MacRae  was  stewing  under  his  outward 
calmness.  Kaye  took  a  step  forward,  with  an  intimi- 
dating thrust  of  his  jaw. 

MacRae  smashed  him  squarely  in  the  mouth  with  a 
straight  left,  and  hooked  him  somewhere  on  the  chin 
with  a  wicked  right  cross.  Either  blow  was  sufficient 
to  knock  any  ordinary  man  down.  There  was  a  decep- 
tive power  in  MacRae's  slendemess,  which  was  not  so 
much  slendemess  as  perfect  bodily  symmetry.  He 
weighed  within  ten  pounds  as  much  as  Sam  Kaye,  al- 
though he  did  not  look  it,  and  he  was  as  quick  as  a  play- 
ful kitten.  Kaye  went  down,  as  told  before.  He  lifted  a 
dazed  countenance  above  the  cockpit  as  MacRae  shoved 
his  craft  clear. 

The  fishermen  broke  the  silence  with  ribald  laughter. 
They  knew  Kaye's  game  too. 

MacRae  left  Folly  Bay  later  in  the  afternoon,  poorer 
by  many  dollars  paid  for  rotten  salmon.  He  wasn't 
in  a  particularly  genial  mood.  The  Sam  Kaye  affair 
had  come  at  an  inopportune  moment.  He  did  n't  care  to 
stand  out  as  a  bruiser.  Still,  he  asked  himself  irritably, 
why  should  he  care  because  Nelly  Abbott  and  Betty 
Gower  had  seen  him  using  his  fists?  He  was  perfectly 
justified.  Indeed,  he  knew  very  well  he  could  have  done 
nothing  else.     The  trollers  had  chortled  over  the  out- 


96  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

come.  These  were  matters  they  could  understand  and 
appreciate.  Even  Steve  Ferrara  looked  at  him  en- 
viously. 

"  It  makes  me  wish  I  'd  dodged  the  gas,"  Steve  said 
wistfully.  "  It 's  hell  to  wheeze  your  breath  in  and  out. 
By  jiminy,  you  're  wicked  with  your  hands,  Jack.  Did 
you  box  much  in  France.?" 

"  Quite  a  lot,"  MacRae  replied.  "  Some  of  the  fel- 
lows in  our  squadron  were  pretty  clever.  We  used  the 
gloves  quite  a  bit." 

"And  you're  naturally  quick,"  Steve  drawled. 
"  Now,  me,  the  gas  has  cooked  my  goose.  I  'd  have  to 
bat  Kaye  over  the  head  with  an  oar.  Gee,  he  sure  got 
a  surprise." 

They  both  laughed.  Even  upon  his  bloody  face  — 
as  he  rose  out  of  his  own  fish  hold  —  bewildered  aston- 
ishment had  been  Sam  Kaye's  chief  expression. 

The  Blackbird  went  her  rounds.  At  noon  the  next 
day  she  met  Vincent  Ferrara  with  her  sister  ship,  and 
the  two  boats  made  one  load  for  the  Blackbird,  She 
headed  south.  With  high  noon,  too,  came  the  summer 
westerly,  screeching  and  whistling  and  lashing  the  Gulf 
to  a  brief  fury. 

It  was  the  regular  summer  wind,  a  yachtsman's  gale. 
Four  days  out  of  six  its  cycle  ran  the  same,  a  breeze 
rising  at  ten  o'clock,  stiffening  to  a  healthy  blow,  a 
mere  sigh  at  sundown.  Midnight  would  find  the  sea 
smooth  as  a  mirror,  the  heaving  swell  killed  by  chang- 
ing tides. 

So  the  Blackbird  ran  down  Squitty,  rolling  and  yaw- 
ing through  a  following  sea,  and  turned  into  Squitty 
Cove  to  rest  till  night  and  calm  settled  on  the  Gulf. 

When  her  mudhook  was  down  in  that  peaceful  nook, 
Steve  Ferrara  turned  into  his  bunk  to  get  a  few  hours' 


COMPLEXITY  OF  SIMPLE  MATTERS     97 

sleep  against  the  long  night  watch.  MacRae  stirred 
wakeful  on  the  sun-hot  deck,  slushing  it  down  with 
buckets  of  sea  water  to  save  his  ice  and  fish.  He  coiled 
ropes,  made  his  vessel  neat,  and  sat  him  down  to  think. 
Squitty  Cove  always  stirred  him  to  introspection.  His 
mind  leaped  always  to  the  manifold  suggestions  of  any 
well-remembered  place.  He  could  shut  his  eyes  and  see 
the  old  log  house  behind  its  leafy  screen  of  alder  and 
maple  at  the  Cove's  head.  The  rosebushes  before  it 
were  laden  with  bloom  now.  At  his  hand  were  the  gray 
cliffs  backed  by  grassy  patches,  running  away  inland 
to  virgin  forest.  He  felt  dispossessed  of  those  noble 
acres.  He  was  always  seeing  them  through  his  father's 
eyes,  feeling  as  Donald  MacRae  must  have  felt  in  those 
last,  lonely  years  of  which  he  had  written  in  simple 
language  that  had  wrung  his  son's  heart. 

But  it  never  occurred  to  Jack  MacRae  that  his 
father,  pouring  out  the  tale  of  those  troubled  years, 
had  bestowed  upon  him  an  equivocal  heritage. 

He  slid  overboard  the  small  skiff  the  Blackbird  car- 
ried and  rowed  ashore.  There  were  rowboat  troUers 
on  the  beach  asleep  in  their  tents  and  rude  lean-tos. 
He  walked  over  the  low  ridge  behind  which  stood  Peter 
Ferrara's  house.  It  was  hot,  the  wooded  heights  of 
the  island  shutting  off  the  cool  westerly.  On  such  a 
day  Peter  Ferrara  should  be  dozing  on  his  porch  and 
Dolly  perhaps  mending  stockings  or  sewing  in  a  rocker 
beside  him. 

But  the  porch  was  bare.  As  MacRae  drew  near  the 
house  a  man  came  out  the  door  and  down  the  three  low 
steps.  He  was  short  and  thick-set,  young,  quite  fair, 
inclined  already  to  floridness  of  skin.  MacRae  knew 
him  at  once  for  Norman  Gower.  He  was  a  typical 
Gower,  —  a  second  edition  of  his  father,  save  that  his 


98  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

face  was  less  suggestive  of  power,  less  heavily  marked 
with  sullenness. 

He  glanced  with  blank  indifference  at  Jack  MacRae, 
passed  within  six  feet  and  walked  along  the  path  which 
ran  around  the  head  of  the  Cove.  MacRae  watched  him. 
He  would  cross  between  the  boathouse  and  the  roses  in 
MacRae's  doorjard.  MacRae  had  an  impulse  to  stride 
after  him,  to  forbid  harshly  any  such  trespass  on 
MacRae  ground.  But  he  smiled  at  that  childishness. 
It  was  childish,  MacRae  knew.  But  he  felt  that  way 
about  it,  just  as  he  often  felt  that  he  himself  had  a  per- 
fect right  to  range  the  whole  end  of  Squitty,  to  tramp 
across  greensward  and  through  forest  depths,  despite 
Horace  Gower's  legal  title  to  the  land.  MacRae  was 
aware  of  this  anomaly  in  his  attitude,  without  troubling 
to  analyze  it. 

He  walked  into  old  Peter's  house  without  announce- 
ment beyond  his  footsteps  on  the  floor,  as  he  had  been 
accustomed  to  do  as  far  back  as  he  could  remember. 
Dolly  was  sitting  beside  a  little  table,  her  chin  in  her 
palms.  There  was  a  droop  to  her  body  that  disturbed 
MacRae.  She  had  sat  for  hours  like  that  the  night  his 
father  died.  And  there  was  now  on  her  face  something 
of  the  same  look  of  sad  resignation  and  pity.  Her  big, 
dark  eyes  were  misty,  troubled,  when  she  lifted  them  to 
MacRae. 

"Hello,  Jack,"  she  said. 

He  came  up  to  her,  put  his  hands  on  her  shoulders. 

"What  is  it  now?"  he  demanded.  "I  saw  Norman 
Gower  leaving  as  I  came  up.  And  here  you  're  looking — 
what's  wrong?  " 

His  tone  was  imperative. 

"  Notliing,  Johnny." 

"  You  don't  cry  for  nothing.    You  're  not  that  kind," 


COMPLEXITY  OF  SIMPLE  MATTERS     99 

MacRae  replied.  "That  chunky  lobster  hasn't  given 
you  the  glooms,  surely?" 

Dolly's  eyes  flashed. 

"  It  is  n't  like  you  to  call  names,"  she  declared.  *'  It 
isn't  nice.  And  —  and  what  business  of  yours  is  it 
whether  I  laugh  or  cry  ?  " 

MacRae  smiled.  Dolly  in  a  temper  was  not  wholly 
strange  to  him.  He  was  struck  with  her  remarkable 
beauty  every  time  he  saw  her.  She  was  altogether  too 
beautiful  a  flower  to  be  blushing  unseen  on  an  island  in 
the  Gulf.    He  shook  her  gently. 

"  Because  I  'm  big  brother.  Because  you  and  I  were 
kids  together  for  years  before  we  ever  knew  there  could 
be  serpents  in  Eden.  Because  anything  that  hurts  you 
hurts  me.  I  don't  like  anything  to  make  you  cry,  mia 
Dolores.  I  'd  wring  Norman  Gower's  chubby  neck  with 
great  pleasure  if  I  thought  he  could  do  that.  I  didn't 
even  know  you  knew  him." 

Dolly  dabbed  at  her  eyes  with  a  handkerchief. 

"There  are  lots  of  things  you  don't  know,  Jack 
MacRae,"  she  murmured.  "Besides,  why  shouldn't  I 
know  Norman  ?  " 

MacRae  threw  out  his  hands  helplessly. 

"No  law  against  it,  of  course,"  he  admitted. 
"Only  — well— " 

He  was  conscious  of  floundering,  with  her  grave, 
dark  eyes  searching  his  face.  There  was  no  reason 
save  his  own  hostility  to  anything  Gower,  —  and  Dolly 
knew  no  basis  for  that  save  the  fact  that  Horace  Gower 
had  acquired  his  father's  ranch.  That  could  not  pos- 
sibly be  a  ground  for  Dolores  Ferrara  to  frown  on  any 
Gower,  male  or  female,  who  happened  to  come  her  way. 

"Why,  I  suppose  it  really  is  none  of  my  business," 
he  said  slowly.     "  Except  that  I  can't  help  being  con- 


100  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

cerned  in  anything  that  makes  you  unhappy.  That 's 
all.'^ 

He  sat  down  on  the  arm  of  her  chair  and  patted 
her  cheek.  To  his  utter  amazement  Dolly  broke  into  a 
storm  of  tears.  Long  ago  he  had  seen  Dolly  cry  when 
she  had  hurt  herself,  because  he  had  teased  her,  because 
she  was  angry  or  disappointed.  He  had  never  seen  any 
woman  cry  as  she  did  now.  It  was  not  just  simple 
grieved  weeping.  It  was  a  tempest  that  shook  her. 
Her  body  quivered,  her  breath  came  in  gasping  bursts 
between  racking  sobs. 

MacRae  gathered  her  into  his  arms,  trying  to  dam 
that  wild  flood.  She  put  her  face  against  him  and  clung 
there,  trembling  like  some  hunted  thing  seeking  refuge, 
mysteriously  stirring  MacRae  with  the  passionate  aban- 
don of  her  teajrs,  filling  him  with  vague  apprehensions, 
with  a  strange  excitement. 

Like  the  tornado,  swift  in  its  striking  and  passing,  so 
this  storm  passed.  Dolly's,  sobbing  ceased.  She  rested 
passively  in  his  arms  for  a  minute.  Then  she  sighed, 
brushed  the  cloudy  hair  out  of  her  eyes,  and  looked  up 
at  him. 

"  I  wonder  why  I  should  go  all  to  pieces  like  that  so 
suddenly.?"  she  muttered.  "And  why  I  should  some- 
how feel  better  for  it  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  MacRae  said.  "  Maybe  I  could  tell 
you  if  I  knew  wlvif  you  went  off  like  that.  You  poor 
little  devil.    Something  has  stung  you  deep,  I  know." 

"Yes,"  she  admitted.  "I  hope  nothing  like  it  ever 
comes  to  you,  Jack.  I'm  bleeding  internally.  Oh,  it 
hurts,  it  hurts !  " 

She  laid  her  head  against  him  and  cried  again 
softly. 

"  Tell  me,"  he  whispered. 


COMPLEXITY  OF  SIMPLE  MATTERS    loi 

"Why  not?"  She  lifted  her  head  after  a  little. 
'*  You  could  always  keep  things  to  yourself.  It  was  n't 
much  wonder  they  called  you  Silent  John.  Do  you  know 
I  never  really  grasped  The  Ancient  Mariner  until  now.? 
People  must  tell  their  troubles  to  some  one  —  or  they'd 
corrode  inside." 

"Go  ahead,"   MacRae  encouraged. 

"When  Norman  Gower  went  overseas  we  were  en- 
gaged," she  said  bluntly,  and  stopped.  She  was  not 
looking  at  MacRae  now.  She  stared  at  the  opposite 
wall,  her  fingers  locked  together  in  her  lap. 

"  For  four  years,"  she  went  on,  "  I  've  been  hoping, 
dreaming,  waiting,  loving.  To-day  he  came  home  to  tell 
me  that  he  married  in  England  two  years  ago.  Married 
in  the  madness  of  a  drunken  hour  —  that  is  how  he  puts 
it — a  girl  who  didn't  care  for  anything  but  the  good 
time  his  rank  and  pay  could  give  her." 

"  I  think  you  're  in  luck,"  MacRae  said  soberly. 

"What  queer  creatures  men  are!"  She  seemed  not 
to  have  heard  him  —  to  be  thinking  her  own  thoughts 
out  loud.  "  He  says  he  loves  me,  that  he  has  loved  me 
all  the  time,  that  he  feels  as  if  he  had  been  walking  in 
his  sleep  and  fallen  into  some  muddy  hole.  And  I  be- 
lieve him.    It 's  terrible,  Johnny." 

"  It 's  impossible,"  MacRae  declared  savagely.  "  If 
he's  got  in  that  kind  of  a  hole,  let  him  stay  there. 
You  're  well  out  of  it.     You  ought  to  be  glad." 

"  But  I  'm  not,"  she  said  sadly.  "  I  'm  not  made  that 
way.  I  can't  let  a  thing  become  a  vital  part  of  my  life 
and  give  it  up  without  a  pang." 

"I  don't  see  what  else  you  can  do,"  MacRae  ob- 
served.    "  Only  brace  up  and  forget  it." 

"  It  is  n't  quite  so  simple  as  that,"  she  sighed.  "  Nor- 
man's  w —  this   woman   presently   got   tired   of  him. 


102  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

Evidently  she  had  no  scruples  about  getting  what  she 
wanted,  nor  how.  She  went  away  with  another  man. 
Norman  is  getting  a  divorce  —  the  decree  absolute  will 
be  granted  in  March  next.    He  wants  me  to  marry  him." 

"Will  you?" 

Dolly  looked  up  to  meet  MacRae's  wondering  stare. 
She  nodded. 

"  You  're  a  triple-plated  fool,"  he  said  roughly. 

*'  I  don't  know,"  she  repHed  thoughtfully.  "  Norman 
certainly  has  been.  Perhaps  I  am  too.  We  should  get 
on  —  a  pair  of  fools  together." 

The  bitterness  in  her  voice  stung  MacRae. 

"  You  really  should  have  loved  me,"  he  said,  "  and  I 
you." 

"But  you  don't,  Jack.  You  have  never  thought  of 
that  before." 

"  I  could,  quite  easily." 

Dolly  considered  this  a  moment. 

"No,"  she  said.  "You  like  me.  I  know  that,. 
Johnny.  I  like  you,  too.  You  are  a  man,  and  I  'm  a 
woman.  But  if  you  weren't  bursting  with  sympathy 
you  wouldn't  have  thought  of  that.  If  Norman  had 
some  of  your  backbone  —  but  it  wouldn't  make  any 
difference.  If  you  know  what  it  is'  that  draws  a  certain 
man  and  woman  together  in  spite  of  themselves,  in  spite 
of  things  they  can  see  in  each  other  that  they  don't 
quite  like,  I  dare  say  you  'd  understand.  I  don't  think  I 
do.  Norman  Gower  has  made  me  dreadfully  unhappy. 
But  I  loved  him  before  he  went  away,  and  I  love  him 
yet.  I  want  him  just  the  same.  And  he  says  —  he 
says  —  that  he  never  stopped  caring  for  me  —  that  it 
was  like  a  bad  dream.  I  believe  him.  I'm  sure  of  it. 
He  didn't  lie  to  me.  And  I  can't  hate  him.  I  can't 
punish  him  without  punishing  myself.     I  don't  want  to 


COMPLEXITY  OF  SIMPLE  MATTERS    103 

punish  him,  any  more  than  I  would  want  to  punish  a 
baby,  if  I  had  one,  for  a  naughtiness  it  could  n't  help." 

"  So  you  '11  marry  him  eventually  ?  "   MacRae  asked. 

Dolly  nodded. 

"If  he  doesn't  change  his  mind,"  she  murmured. 
"  Oh,  I  should  n't  say  ugly  things  like  that.  It  sounds 
cheap  and  mean." 

"But  it  hurts,  it  hurts  me  so  to  think  of  it,"  she 
broke  out  passionately.  "  I  can  forgive  him,  because  I 
can  see  how  it  happened.  Still  it  hurts.  I  feel 
cheated  —  cheated ! " 

She  lay  back  in  her  chair,  fingers  locked  together, 
red  lips  parted  over  white  teeth  that  were  clenched 
together.  Her  eyes  glowed  somberly,  looking  away 
through  distant  spaces. 

And  MacRae,  conscious  that  she  had  said  her  say, 
feeling  that  she  wanted  to  be  alone,  as  he  himself  always 
wanted  to  fight  a  grief  or  a  hurt  alone  and  in  silence, 
walked  out  into  the  sunshine,  where  the  westerly  droned 
high  above  in  the  swaying  fir  tops. 

He  went  up  the  path  around  the  Cove's  head  to  the 
porch  of  his  own  house,  sat  down  on  the  top  step, 
and  cursed  the  Gowers,  root  and  branch.  He  hated 
them,  everything  of  the  name  and  blood,  at  that  mo- 
ment, with  a  profound  and  active  hatred. 

They  were  like  a  blight,  as  their  lives  touched  the 
lives  of  other  people.  They  sat  in  the  seats  of  the 
might}'^,  and  for  their  pleasure  or  their  whims  others 
must  sweat  and  suffer.     So  it  seemed  to  Jack  MacRae. 

Home,  these  crowded,  hurrying  days,  was  aboard 
the  Blackbird.  It  was  pleasant  now  to  sit  on  his  own 
doorstep  and  smell  the  delicate  perfume  of  the  roses 
and  the  balsamy  odors  from  the  woods  behind.  But  the 
rooms  depressed  him  when  he  went  in.    They  were  dusty 


104  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

and  silent,  abandoned  to  that  forsaken  air  which  rests 
upon  uninhabited  dwellings.  MacRae  went  out  again, 
to  stride  aimlessly  along  the  cliffs  past  the  mouth  of 
the  Cove. 

Beyond  the  lee  of  the  island  the  westerly  still  lashed 
the  Gulf.  The  white  horses  galloped  on  a  gray-green 
field.  MacRae  found  a  grassy  place  in  the  shade  of  an 
arbutus,  and  lay  down  to  rest  and  watch.  Sunset  would 
bring  calm,  a  dying  wind,  new  colors  to  sea  and  sky 
and  mountains.  It  would  send  him  away  on  the  long 
run  to  Crow  Harbor,  driving  through  the  night  under 
the  cool  stars. 

No  matter  what  happened  people  must  be  fed.  Food 
was  vital.  Men  lost  their  lives  at  the  fishing,  but  it  went 
on.  Hearts  might  be  torn,  but  hands  still  plied  the 
gear.  Life  had  a  bad  taste  in  Jack  MacRae's  mouth 
as  he  lay  there  under  the  red-barked  tree.  He  was 
moody.  It  seemed  a  struggle  without  mercy  or  justice, 
almost  without  reason,  a  blind  obedience  to  the  will-to- 
live.  A  tooth-and-toenail  contest.  He  surveyed  his 
own  part  in  it  with  cynical  detachment.  So  long  as 
salmon  ran  in  the  sea  they  would  be  taken  for  profit 
in  the  markets  and  the  feeding  of  the  hungry.  And  the 
salmon  would  run  and  men  would  pursue  them,  and  the 
game  would  be  played  without  slackening  for  such 
things  as  broken  faith  or  aching  hearts  or  a  woman's 
tears. 

MacRae  grew  drowsy  puzzling  over  things  like  that. 
Life  was  a  jumble  beyond  his  understanding,  he  con- 
cluded at  last.  Men  strove  to  a  godlike  mastery  of 
circumstances,  —  and  achieved  three  meals  a  day  and 
a  squalid  place  to  sleep.  Sometimes,  when  they  were 
pluming  themselves  on  having  beaten  the  game.  Destiny 
was  laughing  in  her  sleeve  and  spreading  a  snare  for 


COMPLEXITY  OF  SIMPLE  MATTERS    105 

their  feet.     A  man  never  knew  what  was  coming  next. 
It  was  just  a  damned  scramble!    A  disorderly  scramble 
in  which  a  man  could  be  sure  of  getting  hurt. 
He  wondered  if  that  were  really  true. 


CHAPTER   X 

Thrust  and  Counterthrust 

By  the  time  Jack  MacRae  was  writing  August  on  his 
sales  slips  he  was  conscious  of  an  important  fact; 
namely,  that  nearly  a  hundred  gas-boat  fishermen,  troll- 
ing Squitty  Island,  the  Ballenas,  Gray  Rock,  even 
farther  afield  to  Yellow  Rock  Light  and  Lambert  Chan- 
nel, were  compactly  behind  him.  They  were  still  close 
to  a  period  when  they  had  been  remorselessly  exploited. 
They  were  all  for  MacRae.  Prices  being  equal,  they 
preferred  that  he  should  have  their  fish.  It  was  still 
vivid  in  their  astonished  minds  that  he  had  shared 
profits  with  them  without  compulsion,  that  he  had 
boosted  prices  without  competition,  had  put  a  great 
many  dollars  in  their  pockets.  Only  those  who  earn  a 
living  as  precariously,  as  riskily  and  with  as  much 
patient  labor  as  a  salmon  fisherman,  can  so  well  value 
a  dollar.  They  had  an  abiding  confidence,  by  this  time, 
in  Jack  MacRae.  They  knew  he  was  square,  and  they 
said  so.  In  the  territory  his  two  carriers  covered, 
MacRae  was  becoming  the  uncrowned  salmon  king. 
Other  buyers  cut  in  from  time  to  time.  They  did  not 
fare  well.  The  troUers  would  hold  their  salmon,  even 
when  some  sporting  independent  offered  to  shade  the 
current  price.  They  would  shake  their  heads  if  they 
knew  either  of  the  Bird  boats  would  be  there  to  take 
the  fish.  For  when  MacRae  said  he  would  be  there,  he 
was  always  there.     In  the  old  days  they  had  been  com- 


THRUST  AND  COUNTERTHRUST        107 

pelled  to  play  one  buyer  against  another.  They  did 
not  have  to  do  that  with  MacRae. 

The  Folly  Ba}^  collectors  fared  little  better  than 
outside  buyers.  In  July  Gower  met  MacRae's  price  by 
two  successive  raises.  He  stopped  at  that.  MacRae 
did  not.  Each  succeeding  run  of  salmon  averaged 
greater  poundage.  They  were  worth  more.  MacRae 
paid  fifty,  fifty-five  cents.  When  Gower  stood  pat  at 
fifty-five,  MacRae  gave  up  a  fourth  of  his'  contract  per- 
centage and  paid  sixty.  It  was  like  draw  poker  with 
the  advantage  of  the  last  raise  on  his  side. 

The  salmon  were  worth  the  price.  They  were  worth 
double  to  a  cannery  that  lay  mostly  idle  for  lack  of 
fish.  The  salmon,  now,  were  running  close  to  six  pounds 
each.  The  finished  product  was  eighteen  dollars  a 
case  in  the  market.  There  are  forty-eight  one-pound 
cans  in  a  case.  To  a  man  familiar  with  packing  costs 
it  is  a  simple  sum.  MacRae  often  wondered  why  Gower 
stubbornly  refused  to  pay  more,  when  his  collecting 
boats  came  back  to  the  cannery  so  often  with  a  few 
scattered  salmon  in  their  holds.  They  were  primitive 
folk,  these  salmon  trollers.  They  jeered  the  unlucky 
collectors.  Gower  was  losing  his  fisheirmen  as  well  as 
his  fish.  For  the  time,  at  least,  the  back  of  his  long- 
held  monopoly  was  broken. 

MacRae  got  a  little  further  light  on  this  attitude 
from  Stubby  Abbott. 

"He's  figuring  on  making  out  a  season's  pack  with 
cohoes,  humps,  and  dog  salmon,"  Stubby  told  MacRae 
at  the  Crow  Harbor  cannery.  "He  expects  to  work 
his  purse  seiners  overtime,  and  to  hell  with  the  indi- 
vidual fisherman.  Norman  was  telling  me.  Old  Horace 
has  put  Norman  in  charge  at  Folly  Bay,  you  know." 

MacRae  nodded.     He  knew  about  that. 


io8  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

"The  old  boy  is  sore  as  a  boil  at  you 
Stubby  chuckled.  "I  don't  blame  him  much.  He  has 
had  a  cinch  there  so  long  he  thinks  it's  his  private 
pond.  You  've  certainly  put  a  crimp  in  the  Folly  Bay 
blueback  pack  —  to  my  great  benefit.  I  don't  suppose 
any  one  but  you  could  have  done  it  either.'* 

"  Any  one  could,"  MacRae  declared,  "  if  he  knew  the 
waters,  the  men,  and  was  wise  enough  to  play  the  game 
square.  The  trouble  has  been  that  each  buyer  wanted 
to  make  a  clean-up  on  each  trip.  He  wanted  easy 
money.  The  salmon  fisherman  away  up  the  coast 
practically  has  to  take  what  is  offered  him  day  by  day, 
or  throw  his  fish  overboard.  Canneries  and  buyers 
alike  have  systematically  given  him  the  worst  of  the 
deal.  You  don't  cut  your  cannery  hands'  pay  because 
on  certain  days  your  pack  falls  off." 

«  Hardly." 

"  But  canneries  and  collectors  and  every  independent 
buyer  have  always  used  any  old  pretext  to  cut  the  price 
to  the  fisherman  out  on  the  grounds.  And  while  a  fish- 
erman has  to  take  what  he  is  offered  he  does  n't  have  to 
keep  on  taking  it.  He  can  quit,  and  try  something  else. 
Lots  of  them  have  done  that.  That 's  why  there  are 
three  Japanese  to  every  white  salmon  fisherman  on  the 
British  Columbia  coast.  That  is  why  we  have  an 
Oriental  problem.  The  Japs  are  making  the  canneries 
squeal,   are  n't  they  ?  " 

"Rather."  Stubby  smiled.  "They  are  getting  to 
be  a  bit  of  a  problem." 

"The  packers  got  them  in  here  as  cheap  labor  in 
the  salmon  fishing,"  MacRae  went  on.  "The  white 
fisherman  was  too  independent.  He  wanted  all  he  could 
get  out  of  his  work.  He  was  a  kicker,  as  well  as  a  good 
fisherman.    The  packers  thought  they  could  keep  wages 


THRUST  AND  COUNTERTHRUST        109 

down  and  profits  up  by  importing  the  Jap  —  cheap 
labor  with  a  low  standard  of  living.  And  the  Jap  has 
turned  the  tables  on  the  big  fellows.  They  hang  to- 
gether, as  aliens  always  do  in  a  strange  country,  and 
the  war  has  helped  them  freeze  the  white  fisherman  out 
on  one  hand  and  exact  more  and  more  from  the  canner- 
ies on  the  other.  And  that  would  never  have  happened 
if  this  had  been  kept  a  white  man's  country,  and  the 
white  fisherman  had  got  a  square  deal." 

'*  To  buy  as  cheaply  as  you  can  and  sell  for  as  much 
as  you  can,"  Stubby  reminded  him,  "  is  a  fundamental 
of  business.  You  can't  get  away  from  it.  My  father 
abandoned  that  maxim  the  last  two  years  of  his  life,  and 
it  nearly  broke  us.  He  was  a  public-spirited  man. 
He  took  war  and  war-time  conditions  to  heart.  In  a 
period  of  jumping  food  costs  he  tried  to  give  people 
cheaper  food.  As  I  said,  he  nearly  went  broke  trying 
to  do  a  public  service,  because  no  one  else  in  the  same 
business  departed  from  the  business  rule  of  making 
all  they  could.  In  fact,  men  in  the  same  business, 
I  have  since  learned,  were  the  first  to  sharpen  their 
knives  for  him.  He  was  establishing  a  bad  precedent. 
I  don't  know  but  their  attitude  is  sound,  after  all.  In 
sheer  self-defense  a  man  must  make  all  he  can  when  he 
has  a  chance.  You  cannot  indulge  in  philanthropy  in 
a  business  undertaking  these  days.  Silent  John." 

"Granted,"  MacRae  made  answer.  "I  don't  pro- 
pose to  be  a  philanthropist  myself.  But  you  will  get 
farther  with  a  salmon  fisherman,  or  any  other  man 
whose  labor  you  must  depend  on,  if  you  accept  the 
principle  that  he  is  entitled  to  make  a  dollar  as  well  as 
yourself,  if  you  don't  stretch  every  point  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  his  necessity.  These  fellows  who  fish  around 
Squitty  have  been  gouged  and  cheated  a  lot.     They 


no  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

aren't  fools.  They  know  pretty  well  who  makes  the 
long  profit,  who  pile  up  moderate  fortunes  while  they 
get  only  a  living,  and  not  a  particularly  good  living  at 
that." 

"  Are  you  turning  Bolshevik?  "  Stubby  inquired  with 
mock  solicitude. 

MacRae  smiled. 

"Hardly.  Nor  are  the  fishermen.  They  know  I'm 
making  money.  But  they  know  also  that  they  are  get- 
ting more  out  of  it  than  they  ever  got  before,  and  that 
if  I  were  not  on  the  job  they  would  get  a  lot  less." 

"They  certainly  would,"  Abbott  drawled.  "You 
have  been,  and  are  now,  paying  more  for  blueback  sal- 
mon than  any  buyer  on  the  Gulf." 

"Well,  it  has  paid  me.  And  it  has  been  highly 
profitable  to  you,  has  n't  it?  "  MacRae  said.  "  You've 
had  a  hundred  thousand  salmon  to  pack  which  you 
would  not  otherwise  have  had." 

"  Certainly,"  Stubby  agreed.  "  I  'm  not  questioning 
your  logic.  In  this  case  it  has  paid  us  both,  and  the 
fisherman  as  well.     But  suppose  everybody  did  it?" 

"If  you  can  pay  sixty  cents  a  fish,  and  fifteen  per 
cent,  on  top  of  that  and  pack  profitably,  why  can't 
other  canneries  ?  Why  can't  Folly  Bay  meet  that  com- 
petition?    Rather,  why  won't  they?" 

"Matter  of  policy,  maybe,"  Stubby  hazarded. 
"Matter  of  keeping  costs  down.  Apart  from  a  few  little 
fresh-fish  buyers,  you  are  the  only  operator  on  the 
Gulf  who  is  cutting  any  particular  ice.  Gower  may 
figure  that  he  will  eventually  get  these  fish  at  his  own 
price.     If  I  were  eliminated,  he  would." 

"I'd  still  be  on  the  job,"  MacRae  ventured. 

"Would  you,  though?  "   Stubby  asked  doubtfully. 

"  Yes."     MacRae  made  his  reply  positive  in  tone. 


THRUST  AND  COUNTERTHRUST        in 

"You  could  buy  all  right.  That  Squitty  Island 
bunch  of  trollers  seem  convinced  you  are  the  whole 
noise  in  the  salmon  line.  But  without  Crow  Harbor 
where  could  you  unload  such  quantities  of  fish.?  " 

It  struck  MacRae  that  there  was  something  more 
than  mere  casual  speculation  in  Stubby's  words.  But 
he  did  not  attempt  to  delve  into  motives. 

"  A  good  general,"  he  said  with  a  dry  smile,  "does  n't 
advertise  his  plan  of  campaign  in  advance.  Without 
Crow  Harbor  as  a  market  I  could  not  have  done  what 
I  have  done  this  season.  But  Crow  Harbor  could  shut 
down  to-morrow — and  I'd  go  on  just  the  same." 

Stubby  poked  thoughtfully  with  a  pencil  at  the  blot- 
ter on  his  desk. 

"  Well,  Jack,  I  may  as  well  be  quite  frank  with  you," 
he  said  at  last.  "  I  have  had  hints  that  may  mean  some- 
thing. The  big  run  will  be  over  at  Squitty  in  another 
month.  I  don't  believe  I  can  be  dictated  to  on  short 
notice.  But  I  cannot  positively  say.  If  you  can  see 
your  way  to  carry  on,  it  will  be  quite  a  relief  to  me. 
Another  season  it  may  be  different." 

"I  think  I  can." 

But  though  MacRae  said  this  confidently,  he  was 
privately  not  so  sure.  From  the  very  beginning  he 
had  expected  pressure  to  come  on  Stubby,  as  the  active 
head  of  Crow  Harbor.  It  was  as  Stubby  said.  Unless 
he  —  MacRae  —  had  a  market  for  his  fish,  he  could  not 
buy.  And  within  the  limits  of  British  Columbia  the 
salmon  market  was  subject  to  control;  by  just  what 
means  MacRae  had  got  inklings  here  and  there.  He 
had  not  been  deceived  by  the  smoothness  of  his  opera- 
tions so  far.  Below  the  clear  horizon  there  was  a  storm 
gathering.  A  man  like  Gower  did  not  lie  down  and 
submit  passively  to  being  beaten  at  his  own  game. 


112  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

But  MacRae  believed  he  had  gone  too  far  to  be 
stopped  now,  even  if  his  tactics  did  not  please  the  can- 
nery interests.  They  could  have  squelched  him  easily 
enough  in  the  beginning,  when  he  had  no  funds  to  speak 
of,  when  his  capital  was  mostly  a  capacity  for  hard, 
dirty  work  and  a  willingness  to  take  chances.  Already 
he  had  run  his  original  shoestring  to  fifteen  thousand 
dollars  cash  in  hand.  It  scarcely  seemed  possible.  It 
gave  him  a  startling  vision  of  the  profits  in  the  salmon 
industry,  and  it  was  not  a  tenable  theory  that  men  who 
had  controlled  such  a  source  of  profits  would  sit  idle 
while  he  undermined  their  monopoly.  Nevertheless  he 
had  made  that  much  money  in  four  months.  He  had  at 
his  back  a  hundred  fishermen  who  knew  him,  liked  him, 
trusted  him,  who  were  anxious  that  he  should  prosper, 
because  they  felt  that  they  were  sharing  in  that  pros- 
perity. Ninety  per  cent,  of  these  men  had  a  grievance 
against  the  canneries.  And  he  had  the  good  will  of 
these  men  with  sun-browned  faces  and  hook-scarred 
hands.  The  human  equation  in  industrial  processes  is 
a  highly  important  one,  as  older,  wiser  men  than  Jack 
MacRae  had  been  a  longer  time  discovering. 

He  did  not  try  to  pin  Stubby  to  a  more  definite  state- 
ment. A  hint  was  enough  for  MacRae.  Stubby  Abbott 
could  also  be  depended  upon  to  see  things  beyond  the 
horizon.  If  a  storm  broke  Stubby  was  the  most  vul- 
nerable, because  in  a  sense  he  was  involved  with  the 
cannery  interests  in  general,  and  they  would  consider 
him  an  apostate  and  knife  him  without  mercy,  —  if 
they  could.  If  the  Abbott  estate  had  debts,  obliga- 
tions which  could  be  manipulated,  if  through  the  finan- 
cial convolutions  of  marketing  the  Crow  Harbor  pack 
Stubby  could  be  reached,  the  Abbott  family  had  prop- 
erty, a  standard  of  living  that  stood  for  comfort,  ap- 


THRUST  AND  COUNTERTHRUST        113 

pearance,  luxury  almost.  There  are  always  plenty  of 
roads  open  to  a  flank  attack  on  people  like  that;  many 
levers,  financial  and  otherwise,  can  be  pulled  for  or 
against  them. 

So  MacRae,  knowing  that  Stubby  must  protect  him- 
self in  a  showdown,  set  about  fortifying  his  own  ap- 
proaches. 

For  a  first  move  he  hired  an  engineer,  put  Steve 
Ferrara  in  charge  of  the  Blackbird,  and  started  him 
back  to  Squitty.  Then  MacRae  took  the  next  train  to 
Bellingham,  a  cannery  town  which  looks  out  on  the 
southern  end  of  the  Gulf  of  Georgia  from  the  American 
side  of  the  boundary.  He  extended  his  journey  to 
Seattle.     Altogether,  he  was  gone  three  days. 

When  he  came  back  he  made  a  series  of  calls,  —  at 
the  Vancouver  offices  of  three  different  canneries  and 
one  of  the  biggest  cold-storage  concerns  on  the  Pacific 
Coast.  He  got  a  courteous  but  unsatisfactory  recep- 
tion from  the  cannery  men.  He  fared  a  little  better 
with  the  manager  of  the  cold-storage  plant.  This  gen- 
tleman was  tentatively  agreeable  in  the  matter  of  pur- 
chasing salmon,  but  rather  vague  in  the  way  of  terms. 

"Beginning  with  May  next  I  can  deliver  any  quan- 
tity up  to  two  thousand  a  day,  perhaps  more,  for  a 
period  of  about  four  months,"  MacRae  stated.  "  What 
I  should  like  to  know  is  the  percentage  over  the  up-coast 
price  you  would  pay." 

But  he  could  not  pin  the  man  down  to  anything 
definite.  He  would  only  speak  pleasantly  of  the  market 
and  possible  arrangements,  utter  vague  commonplaces 
in  business  terminology.    MacRae  rose. 

"I'm  wasting  your  time  and  my  own,"  he  said. 
"  You  don't  want  my  fish.  Why  not  say  so?  " 

"We  always  want  fish,"   the  man  declared,  bending 


114  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

a  shrewdly  appraising  eye  on  MacRae.  "  Bring  in  the 
salmon  and  we  will  do  business." 

"On  your  own  terms  when  my  carriers  are  tied  to 
your  dock  with  a  capacity  load  which  I  must  sell  or 
throw  overboard  within  forty-eight  hours,"  MacRae 
smiled.  "  No,  I  don't  intend  to  go  up  against  any  take- 
it-or-leave  proposition  like  that.     I  don't  have  to." 

"Well,  we  might  allow  you  five  per  cent.  That's 
about  the  usual  thing  on  salmon.  And  we  would  rather 
have  salmon  now  than  a  promise  of  them  next  season." 

"  Oh,  rats ! "  MacRae  snorted.  "  I  'm  in  the  business 
to  make  money  —  not  simply  to  create  dividends  for 
your  Eastern  stockholders  while  I  eke  out  a  living  and 
take  all  the  risks.     Come  again." 

The  cold  storage  man  smiled. 

"  Come  and  see  me  in  the  spring.  Meantime,  when 
you  have  a  cargo  of  salmon,  you  might  run  them  in  to 
us.  We  '11  pay  market  prices.  It 's  up  to  you  to  pro- 
tect yourself  in  the  buying." 

MacRae  went  on  about  his  business.  He  had  not  ex- 
pected much  encouragement  locally,  so  he  did  not  suffer 
disappointment.  He  knew  quite  well  "what  he  could 
expect  in  Vancouver  if  Crow  Harbor  canceled  his  con- 
tract. He  would  bring  in  boatloads  of  salmon,  and  the 
dealers  would  squeeze  him,  all  but  the  Terminal  Fish 
Company.  And  if  the  market  could  be  controlled,  if 
the  men  behind  could  dictate  the  Crow  Harbor  policy, 
they  might  also  bring  the  Terminal  into  line.  Even 
if  they  did  not  the  Terminal  could  only  handle  a  minor 
portion  of  the  salmon  he  could  get  while  the  big  run 
swirled  around  Squitty  Island. 

But  MacRae  was  not  downcast.  He  was  only  sober 
and  thoughtful,  which  had  become  characteristic  of  him 
in  the  last  four  months.     He  was  forgetting  how  to 


THRUST  AND  COUNTERTHRUST        115 

laugh,  to  be  buoyant,  to  see  the  world  through  the  rose- 
colored  glasses  of  sanguine  youth.  He  was  becoming  a 
living  exampler  of  his  nickname.  Even  Stubby  Abbott 
marked  this  when  Jack  came  back  from  Bellingham. 

"  Come  on  out  to  the  house,"  Stubby  urged.  "  Your 
men  can  handle  the  job  a  day  or  two  longer.  Forget 
the  grind  for  once.     It 's  getting  you." 

"  No,  I  don't  think  it  is,"  MacRae  denied.  "  But  a 
man  can't  play  and  produce  at  the  same  time.  I  have 
to  keep  going." 

He  did  go  out  to  Abbott's  one  evening,  however, 
and  suffered  a  good  deal  of  teasing  from  Nelly  over  his 
manhandling  of  Sam  Kaye.  A  lot  of  other  young  people 
happened  to  foregather  there.  They  sang  and  flirted 
and  presently  moved  the  rugs  off  the  living-room  floor 
and  danced  to  a  phonograph.  MacRae  found  himself 
a  little  out  of  it,  by  inclination.  He  was  tired,  without 
knowing  quite  what  was  the  matter  with  him.  A  man, 
even  a  young  and  sturdy  man,  cannot  work  like  a  horse 
for  months  on  end,  eating  his  meals  anyhow  and  sleep- 
ing when  he  can,  without  losing  temporarily  the  zest  for 
careless  fun.  For  another  thing,  he  found  himself 
looking  at  these  immaculate  young  people  as  any  hard- 
driven  worker  must  perforce  look  upon  drones. 

They  were  sons  and  daughters  of  the  well-to-do, 
divorced  from  all  uncouthness,  with  pretty  manners  and 
good  clothes.  They  seemed  serene  in  the  assurance  — 
MacRae  got  this  impression  for  the  first  time  in  his 
social  contact  with  them  —  that  wearing  good  clothes, 
behaving  well,  giving  themselves  whole-heartedly  to 
having  a  good  time,  was  the  most  important  and  sat- 
isfying thing  in  the  world.  They  moved  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  considering  these  things  their  due,  a  birthright, 
their  natural  and  proper  condition  of  well-being. 


ii6  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

And  MacRae  found  himself  wondering  what  they 
gave  or  ever  expected  to  give  in  return  for  this  pleasant 
security  of  mind  and  body.  Some  one  had  to  pay  for  it, 
the  silks  and  georgettes  and  white  flannels,  furs  and 
strings  of  pearls  and  gold  trinkets,  the  good  food,  the 
motor  cars,  and  the  fun. 

He  knew  a  little  about  every  one  he  met  that  evening, 
for  in  Vancouver  as  in  any  other  community  which  has 
developed  a  social  life  beyond  the  purely  primitive 
stages  of  association,  people  gravitate  into  sets  and 
cliques.  They  lived  in  good  homes,  they  had  servants, 
they  week-ended  here  and  there.  Of  the  dozen  or  more 
young  men  and  women  present,  only  himself  and  Stubby 
Abbott  made  any  pretense  at  work. 

Yet  somebody  paid  for  all  they  had  and  did.  Men 
in  offices,  in  shops,  in  fishing  boats  and  mines  and  log- 
ging camps  worked  and  sweated  to  pay  for  all  this  well- 
being  in  which  they  could  have  no  part.  MacRae  even 
suspected  that  a  great  many  men  had  died  across  the 
sea  that  this  sort  of  thing  should  remain  the  inviolate 
privilege  of  just  such  people  as  these.  It  was  not  an 
inspiring  conclusion. 

He  smiled  to  himself.  How  they  would  stare  if  he 
should  voice  these  stray  thoughts  in  plain  English. 
They  would  cry  out  that  he  was  a  Bolshevik.  Abso- 
lutely !  He  wondered  why  he  should  think  such  things. 
He  wasn't  disgruntled.  He  wanted  a  great  many 
things  which  these  young  people  of  his  own  age  had  got- 
ten from  fairy  godmothers,  —  in  the  shape  of  pioneer 
parents  who  had  skimmed  the  cream  off  the  resources 
of  a  developing  frontier  and  handed  it  on  to  their  chil- 
dren, and  who  themselves  so  frequently  kept  in  the 
background,  a  little  in  awe  of  their  gilded  offspring. 
MacRae  meant  to  beat  the  game  as  it  was  being  played. 


THRUST  AND  COUNTERTHRUST        117 

He  felt  that  he  was  beating  it.  But  nothing  would  be 
handed  him  on  a  silver  salver.  Fortune  would  not  be 
bestowed  upon  him  in  any  easy,  soft-handed  fashion. 
He  would  have  to  render  an  equivalent  for  what  he  got. 
He  wondered  if  the  security  of  success  so  gained  would 
have  any  greater  value  for  him  than  it  would  have  for 
those  who  took  their  blessings  so  lightly. 

This  kink  of  analytical  reasoning  was  new  to  Mac- 
Rae,  and  it  kept  him  from  entering  whole-heartedly 
into  the  joyous  frivolity  which  functioned  in  the  Abbott 
home  that  evening.  He  had  never  found  himself  in  that 
critical  mood  before.  He  did  not  want  to  prattle  non- 
sense. He  did  not  want  to  think,  and  he  could  not  help 
thinking.  He  had  a  curious  sense  of  detachment  from 
what  was  going  on,  even  while  he  was  a  part  of  it.  So 
he  did  not  linger  late. 

The  Blackbird  had  discharged  at  Crow  Harbor  late 
in  the  afternoon.  She  lay  now  at  a  Vancouver  slip.  By 
eleven  o'clock  he  was  aboard  in  his  bunk,  still  thinking 
when  he  should  have  been  asleep,  staring  wide-eyed  at 
dim  deck  beams,  his  mind  flitting  restlessly  from  one 
thing  to  another.  Steve  Ferrara  lay  in  the  opposite 
bunk,  wheezing  his  breath  in  and  out  of  lungs  seared  by 
poison  gas  in  Flanders.  Smells  of  seaweed  and  tide- 
flat  wafted  in  through  open  hatch  and  portholes.  A  full 
moon  thrust  silver  fingers  through  deck  openings. 
Gradually  the  softened  medley  of  harbor  noises  lulled 
MacRae  into  a  dreamless  sleep.  He  only  wakened  at 
the  clank  of  the  engine  and  the  shudder  of  the  Black- 
bird's timbers  as  Steve  backed  her  out  of  her  berth  in 
the  first  faint  gleam  of  dawn. 

The  Blackbird  made  her  trip  and  a  second  and  a 
third,  which  brought  the  date  late  in  August.  On  his 
delivery,  when  the  salmon  in  her  hold  had  been  pica- 


ii8  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

rooned  to  the  cannery  floor,  MacRae  went  up  to  the 
office.  Stubby  had  sent  for  him.  He  looked  uncom- 
fortable when  Jack  came  in. 

"What's  on  your  mind  now?"  MacRae  asked 
genially. 

"  Something  damned  unpleasant,"    Stubby  growled. 

"  Shoot,"  MacRae  said.  He  sat  down  and  lit  a 
cigarette. 

"  I  did  n't  think  they  could  do  it,"  Abbott  said  slowly. 
"  But  it  seems  they  can.  I  guess  you  '11  have  to  lay  off 
the  Gower  territory  after  all.  Jack." 

"  You  mean  you  will,"  MacRae  replied.  "  I  've  been 
rather  expecting  that.     Can  Gower  hurt  you.'"' 

"  Not  personally.  But  the  banks — export  control  — 
there  are  so  many  angles  to  the  cannery  situation. 
There  's  nothing  openly  threatened.  But  it  has  been 
made  perfectly  clear  to  me  that  I  '11  be  hampered  and 
harassed  till  I  won't  know  whether  I'm  afoot  or  on 
horseback,  if  I  go  on  paying  a  few  cents  more  for  sal- 
mon in  order  to  keep  my  plant  working  efficiently. 
Damn  it,  I  hate  it.  But  I  'm  in  no  position  to  clash  with 
the  rest  of  the  cannery  crowd  and  the  banks  too.  I  hate 
to  let  you  down.  You  've  pulled  me  out  of  a  hole.  I 
don't  know  a  man  who  would  have  worked  at  your  pitch 
and  carried  things  off  the  way  you  have.  If  I  had  this 
pack  marketed,  I  could  snap  my  fingers  at  them.  But  I 
haven't.  There's  the  rub.  I  hate  to  ditch  you  in 
order  to  insure  myself  —  get  in  line  at  somebody  else's 
dictation." 

"  Don't  worry  about  me,"  MacRae  said  gently.  "  I 
have  no  cannery  and  no  pack  to  market  through  the 
regular  channels.  Nor  has  the  bank  advanced  me  any 
funds.  You  are  not  responsible  for  what  I  do.  And 
neither  Gower  nor  the  Packers'  Association  nor  the 


THRUST  AND  COUNTERTHRUST        119 

banks  can  stop  me  from  buying  salmon  so  long  as  I 
have  the  money  to  pay  the  fishermen  and  carriers  to 
haul  them,  can  they?'' 

"  No,  but  the  devil  of  it  is  they  can  stop  you  selling, ^^ 
Stubby  lamented  bitterly.  "  I  tell  you  there  is  n't  a 
cannery  on  the  Gulf  will  pay  you  a  cent  more  than 
they  pay  the  fishermen.  What's  the  use  of  buying  if 
you  can't  sell?  " 

MacRae  did  not  attempt  to  answer  that. 

"Let's  sum  it  up,"  he  said.  "You  can't  take  any 
more  bluebacks  from  Gower's  territory.  That,  I  gather, 
is  the  chief  object.  I  suppose  they  know  as  much  about 
your  business  as  you  know  yourself.  Am  I  to  be  de- 
prived of  the  two  boat  charters  into  the  bargain?  " 

"No,  by  the  Lord,"  Stubby  swore.  "Not  if  you 
want  them.  My  general  policy  may  be  subject  to  dic- 
tation, but  not  the  petty  details  of  my  business.  There 's 
a  limit.    I  won't  stand  for  that." 

"Put  a  fair  price  on  the  Birds,  and  I'll  buy  'em 
both,"  MacRae  suggested.  "You  had  them  up  for 
sale,  anyway.  That  will  let  you  out,  so  far  as  my 
equipment  is  concerned." 

"Five  thousand  each,"  Stubby  said  promptly. 
"  They  're  good  value  at  that.  And  I  can  use  ten  thou- 
sand dollars  to  advantage,  right  now." 

"  I  '11  give  you  a  check.  I  want  the  registry  trans- 
ferred to  me  at  once,"  MacRae  continued.  "That 
done,  you  can  cease  worrying  over  me.  Stub.  You  've 
been  square,  and  I  've  made  money  on  the  deal.  You 
would  be  foolish  to  fight  unless  you  have  a  fighting 
chance.  Oh,  another  thing.  Will  the  Terminal  shut  off 
on  me,  too?" 

"  No,"  Stubby  declared.  "  The  Terminal  is  one  of  the 
weapons  I  intend  ultimately  to  use  as  a  club  on  the  heads 


120  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

of  this  group  of  gentlemen  who  want  to  make  a  close  cor- 
poration of  the  salmon  industry  on  the  British  Columbia 
coast.  If  I  get  by  this  season,  I  shall  be  in  shape  to 
show  them  something.  They  will  not  bother  about  the 
Terminal,  because  the  Terminal  is  small.  All  the  sal- 
mon they  could  take  from  you  wouldn't  hurt  Gower. 
What  they  want  is  to  enable  Gower  to  get  up  his  usual 
fall  pack.  It  has  taken  him  this  long  to  get  things 
shaped  so  he  could  call  me  off.  He  can't  reach  a  local 
concern  like  the  Terminal.  No,  the  Terminal  will  con- 
tinue to  buy  salmon  from  you.  Jack.  But  you  know 
they  haven't  the  facilities  to  handle  a  fourth  of  the 
salmon  you  have  been  running  lately." 

"  I  '11  see  they  get  whatever  they  can  use,"  MacRae 
declared.  "  And  if  it  is  any  satisfaction  to  you  person- 
ally. Stub,  I  can  assure  you  that  I  shall  continue  to  do 
business  as  usual." 

Stubby  looked  curious. 

''You've  got  something  up  your  sleeve?" 

"  Yes,"  MacRae  admitted.  "  No  stuffed  club,  either. 
It 's  loaded.    You  wait  and  keep  your  ears  open." 

MacRae's  face  twisted  into  a  mirthless  smile.  His 
eyes  glowed  with  the  fire  that  always  blazed  up  in  them 
when  he  thought  too  intensely  of  Horace  Gower  and 
the  past,  or  of  Gower's  various  shifts  to  defeat  him  in 
what  he  undertook.  He  had  anticipated  this  move.  He 
was  angrily  determined  that  Gower  should  not  get  one 
more  salmon,  or  buy  what  he  got  a  cent  cheaper,  by 
this  latest  strategy. 

"You  appear  to  like  old  Horace,"  Stubby  said 
thoughtfully,  "about  as  much  as  our  fellows  used  to 
like  Fritz  when  he  dropped  high  explosives  on  suppos- 
edly bomb-proof  shelters." 

"  Just  about  as  much,"  MacRae  said  shortly.  "  Well, 


THRUST  AND  COUNTERTHRUST       121 

you'll  transfer  that  registry  —  when?  I  want  to  get 
back  to  Squitty  as  soon  as  possible." 

"  I  '11  go  to  town  with  you  now,  if  you  like,"  Stubby 
offered. 

They  acted  on  that.  Within  two  hours  MacRae  was 
the  owner  of  two  motor  launches  under  British  registry. 
Payment  in  full  left  him  roughly  with  five  thousand 
doUars  working  capital,  enough  by  only  a  narrow  mar- 
gin. At  sunset  Vancouver  was  a  smoky  smudge  on  a  far 
horizon.  At  dusk  he  passed  in  the  narrow  mouth  of 
Squitty  Cove.  The  Bluebird  was  swinging  about  to  go 
when  her  sister  ship  ranged  alongside.  Vincent  Ferrara 
dropped  his  hook  again.  There  were  forty  trollers  in 
the  Cove.  MacRae  called  to  them.  They  came  in  skiffs 
and  dinghy s,  and  when  they  were  all  about  his  stern 
and  some  perched  in  sea  boots  along  the  Blackbird's  low 
bulwarks,  MacRae  said  what  he  had  to  say. 

"Gower  has  come  alive.  My  market  for  fish  bought 
in  Gower's  territory  is  closed,  so  far  as  Crow  Harbor 
is  concerned.  If  I  can't  sell  salmon  I  can't  buy  them 
from  you.  How  much  do  you  think  Folly  Bay  will  pay 
for  your  fish  ?  " 

He  waited  a  minute.  The  fishermen  looked  at  him  in 
the  yellow  lantern  light,  at  each  other.  They  shifted 
uneasily.    No  one  answered  his  question. 

MacRae  went  on. 

"You  can  guess  what  will  happen.  You  will  be 
losers.  So  will  I.  I  don't  like  the  idea  of  being  frozen 
out  of  the  salmon-buying  business,  now  that  I  have  got 
my  hand  in.  I  don't  intend  to  be.  As  long  as  I  can 
handle  a  load  of  salmon  I  '11  make  the  run.  But  I  've 
got  to  run  them  farther,  and  you  fellows  will  have  to 
wait  a  bit  for  me  now  and  then,  perhaps.  The  cannery 
men  hang  together.     They  are  making  it  bad  for  me 


122  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

because  I  'm  paying  a  few  cents  more  for  salmon.  They 
have  choked  off  Crow  Harbor.  Gower  is  hungry  for 
cheap  salmon,  ^e  '11  get  them,  too,  if  you  let  him  head 
off  outside  buyers.  Since  I  'm  the  only  buyer  covering 
these  grounds,  it's  up  to  you,  more  than  ever,  to  see 
that  I  keep  coming.  That's  all.  Tell  the  rest  of  the 
fishermen  what  I  say  whenever  you  happen  to  run 
across  them." 

They  became  articulate.  They  plied  MacRae  with 
questions.  He  answered  tersely,  as  truthfully  as  he 
could.  They  cursed  Folly  Bay  and  the  canneries  in 
general.  But  they  were  not  downcast.  They  did  not 
seem  apprehensive  that  Folly  Bay  would  get  salmon  for 
forty  cents.  MacRae  had  said  he  would  still  buy.  For 
them  that  settled  it.  They  would  not  have  to  sell  their 
catch  to  Folly  Bay  for  whatever  price  Gower  cared  to 
set.  Presently  they  began  to  drift  away  to  their  boats, 
to  bed,  for  their  work  began  in  that  gray  hour  between 
dawn  and  sunrise  when  the  schooling  salmon  best  strike 
the  trolling  spoon. 

One  lingered,  a  returned  soldier  named  Mullen,  who 
had  got  his  discharge  in  May  and  gone  fishing.  Mullen 
had  seen  two  years  in  the  trenches.  He  sat  in  his  skiff, 
scowling  up  at  MacRae,  talking  about  the  salmon 
packers,  about  fishing. 

"Aw,  it's  the  same  everywhere,"  he  said  cynically. 
"  They  all  want  a  cinch,  easy  money,  big  money.  Looks 
like  the  more  you  have,  the  more  you  can  grab.  Folly 
Bay  made  barrels  of  coin  while  the  war  was  on.  Why 
can't  they  give  us  fellers  a  show  to  make  a  little  now.? 
But  they  don't  give  a  damn,  so  long  as  they  get  theirs. 
And  then  they  wonder  why  some  of  us  guys  that  went 
to  France  holler  about  the  way  we  find  things  when  we 
come  home." 


THRUST  AND  COUNTERTHRUST        123 

He  pushed  his  skiff  away  into  the  gloom  that  rested 
upon  the  Cove. 

The  Bluebird  was  packed  with  salmon  to  her  hatch 
covers.  There  had  been  a  fresh  run.  The  trollers  were 
averaging  fifty  fish  to  a  man  daily.  MacRae  put  Vin- 
cent Ferrara  aboard  the  Blackbird,  himself  took  over 
the  loaded  vessel,  and  within  the  hour  was  clear  of 
Squitty's  dusky  headlands,  pointing  a  course  straight 
down  the  middle  of  the  Gulf.  His  man  turned  in  to 
sleep.  MacRae  stood  watch  alone,  listening  to  the 
ksi-chooff  lia-choof  of  the  exhaust,  the  murmuring  swash 
of  calm  water  cleft  by  the  Bluebird's  stem.  Away  to 
starboard  the  Ballenas  light  winked  and  blinked  its 
flaming  eye  to  seafaring  men  as  it  had  done  in  his 
father's  time.  Miles  to  port  the  Sand  Heads  lightship 
swung  to  its  great  hawsers  off  the  Fraser  River  shoals. 

MacRae  smiled  contentedly.  There  was  a  long  run 
ahead.  But  he  felt  that  he  had  beaten  Gower  in  this 
first  definite  brush.  Moving  in  devious  channels  to  a 
given  end  Gower  had  closed  the  natural  markets  to 
MacRae. 

But  there  was  no  law  against  the  export  of  raw  sal- 
mon to  a  foreign  country.  MacRae  could  afford  to 
smile.  Over  in  Bellingham  there  were  salmon  packers 
who,  like  Folly  Bay,  were  hungry  for  fish  to  feed  their 
great  machines.  But  —  unlike  Folly  Bay  —  they  were 
willing  to  pay  the  price,  any  price  in  reason,  for  a  sup- 
ply of  salmon.  Their  own  carriers  later  in  the  season 
would  invade  Canadian  waters,  so  many  thorns  in  the 
ample  sides  of  the  British  Columbia  packers.  "The 
damned  Americans ! "  they  sometimes  growled,  and 
talked  about  legislation  to  keep  American  fish  buyers 
out.  Because  the  American  buyer  and  canner  alike 
would  spend  a  dollar  to  make  a  dollar.    And  the  British 


124  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

Columbia  packers  wanted  a  cinch,  a  monopoly,  which 
in  a  measure  they  had.  They  were  an  anachronism, 
MacRae  felt.  They  regarded  the  salmon  and  the  sal- 
mon waters  of  the  British  Columbia  coast  as  the  feudal 
barons  of  old  jealously  regarded  their  special  preroga- 
tives. MacRae  could  see  them  growling  and  grumb- 
ling, he  could  see  most  clearly  the  scowl  that  would 
spread  over  the  face  of  Mr.  Horace  A»  Gower,  when 
he  learned  that  ten  to  twenty  thousand  Squitty  Island 
salmon  were  passing  down  the  Gulf  each  week  to  an 
American  cannery ;  that  a  smooth-faced  boy  out  of  the 
Air  Service  was  putting  a  crimp  in  the  ancient  order 
of  things  so  far  as  one  particular  cannery  was  con- 
cerned. 

This  notion  amused  MacRae,  served  to  while  away 
the  hours  of  monotonous  plowing  over  an  unruffled  sea, 
until  he  drove  down  abreast  the  Fraser  River's  mouth 
and  passed  in  among  the  nets  and  lights  of  the  sockeye 
iQeet  drifting,  a  thousand  strong,  on  the  broad  bosom 
of  the  Gulf.  Then  he  had  to  stand  up  to  his  steering 
wheel  and  keep  a  sharp  lookout,  lest  he  foul  his  pro- 
pellor  in  a  net  or  cut  down  some  careless  fisherman  who 
did  not  show  a  riding  light. 


CHAPTER   XI 

PE111I4  OF  THE  Sea 

The  last  of  August  set  the  Red  Flower  of  the  Jungle 
books  blooming  along  the  British  Columbia  coast.  The 
seeds  of  it  were  scattered  on  hot,  dry,  still  days  by  pipe 
and  cigarette,  by  sparks  from  donkey  engines,  by  un- 
tended  camp  fires,  wherever  the  careless  white  man  went 
in  the  great  coastwise  forests.  The  woods  were  like  a 
tinder  box.  One  unguarded  moment,  and  the  ancient 
firs  were  wrapped  in  sheets  of  flame.  Smoke  lay  on  the 
Gulf  like  a  pall  of  pungent  fog,  through  which  vessels 
ran  by  chart  and  compass,  blind  between  ports,  at  im- 
minent risk  of  collision. 

Through  this,  well  on  into  September,  MacRae  and 
Vincent  Ferrara  gathered  cargoes  of  salmon  and  ran 
them  down  the  Gulf  to  Bellingham,  making  their  trips 
with  the  regularity  of  the  tides,  despite  the  murk  that 
hid  landmarks  by  day  and  obscured  the  guiding  light- 
house flashes  when  dark  closed  in.  They  took  their 
chances  in  the  path  of  coastwise  traffic,  straining 
their  eyes  for  vessels  to  leap  suddenly  out  of  the  thick- 
ness that  shut  them  in,  their  ears  for  fog  signals  that 
blared  warning.  There  were  close  shaves,  but  they 
escaped  disaster.  They  got  the  salmon  and  they  de- 
livered them,  and  Folly  Bay  still  ran  a  bad  second 
wherever  the  Bird  boats  served  the  trolling  fleet.  Even 
when  Gower  at  last  met  MacRae's  price,  his  collectors 
got  few  fish.     The  fishermen  took  no  chances.     They 


126  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

were  convinced  that  if  MacRae  abandoned  buying  for 
lack  of  salmon  Folly  Bay  would  cut  the  price  in  two. 
It  had  been  done  before.  So  they  held  their  fish  for  the 
Bird  boats.  MacRae  got  them  all.  Even  when  Ameri- 
can buyers  trailed  MacRae  to  the  source  of  his  supply 
their  competition  hurt  Gower  instead  of  MacRae. 
The  tr oilers  supplied  MacRae  with  all  the  salmon  he 
could  carry.  It  was  still  fresh  in  their  minds  that  he 
had  come  into  the  field  that  season  as  their  special 
Providence. 

But  the  blueback  run  tapered  off  at  Squitty.  Sep- 
tember ushered  in  the  annual  coho  run  on  its  way  to 
the  spawning  grounds.  And  the  coho  did  not  school 
along  island  shores,  feeding  upon  tiny  herring.  Stray 
squadrons  of  coho  might  pass  Squitty,  but  they  did 
not  linger  in  thousands  as  the  blueback  did.  The  coho 
swept  into  the  Gulf  from  mysterious  haunts  in  blue 
water  far  offshore,  myriads  of  silver  fish  seeking  the 
streams  where  they  were  spawned,  and  to  which  as 
mature  fish  they  now  returned  to  reproduce  themselves. 
They  came  in  great  schools.  They  would  loaf  awhile 
in  some  bay  at  a  stream  mouth,  until  some  irresistible 
urge  drove  them  into  fresh  water,  up  rivers  and  creeks, 
over  shoal  and  rapid,  through  pool  and  canyon,  until 
the  stream  ran  out  to  a  whimpering  trickle  and  the 
backs  of  the  salmon  stuck  out  of  the  water.  Up  there, 
in  the  shadow  of  great  mountains,  in  the  hidden 
places  of  the  Coast  range,  those  that  escaped  their 
natural  enemies  would  spawn  and  die. 

While  the  coho  and  the  humpback,  which  came  about 
the  same  time,  and  the  dog  salmon,  which  comes  last  of 
all  —  but  each  to  function  in  the  same  manner  and 
sequence  —  laid  in  the  salt-water  bays,  resting,  it 
would  seem,  before  the  last  and  most  terrible  struggle 


PERIL  OF  THE  SEA  127 

of  their  brief  existence,  the  gill-net  fishermen  and  the 
cannery  purse-seine  boats  took  toll  of  them.  The  troll- 
ers  harried  them  from  the  moment  they  showed  in  the 
Gulf,  because  the  coho  will  strike  at  a  glittering  spoon 
anywhere  in  salt  water.  But  the  net  boats  take  them  in 
hundreds  at  one  drift,  and  the  purse  seiners  gather 
thousands  at  a  time  in  a  single  sweep  of  the  great  bag- 
like seine. 

When  September  days  brought  the  cohoes  in  full  force 
along  with  cooler  nights  and  a  great  burst  of  rain 
that  drowned  the  forest  fires  and  cleared  away  the  en- 
shrouding smoke,  leaving  only  the  pleasant  haze  of 
autumn,  the  Folly  Bay  purse-seine  boats  went  out  to 
work.  The  trolling  fleet  scattered  from  Squitty  Island. 
Some  steamed  north  to  the  troubled  waters  of  Salmon 
River  and  Blackfish  Sound,  some  to  the  Redondas  where 
spring  salmon  could  be  taken.  Many  put  by  their 
trolling  gear  and  hung  their  gill  nets.  A  few  gas  boats 
and  a  few  rowboat  men  held  to  the  Island,  depending 
upon  stray  schools  and  the  spring  salmon  that  haunted 
certain  reefs  and  points  and  beds  of  kelp.  But  the  main 
fleet  scattered  over  two  hundred  miles  of  sea. 

MacRae  could  have  called  it  a  season  and  quit  with 
honor  and  much  profit.  Or  he  might  have  gone  north 
and  bought  salmon  here  and  there,  free-lancing.  He 
did  neither.  There  were  enough  gill-netters  operating 
on  Gower's  territory  to  give  him  fair  cargoes.  Every 
salmon  he  could  divert  from  the  cans  at  Folly  Bay 
meant,  —  well,  he  did  not  often  stop  to  ask  precisely 
what  that  did  mean  to  him.  But  he  never  passed  Poor 
Man's  Rock,  bleak  and  brown  at  low  tide,  or  with  seas 
hissing  over  it  when  the  tide  was  at  flood,  without 
thinking  of  his  father,  of  the  days  and  months  and  years 
old  Donald  MacRae  had  lived  and  worked  in  sight  of 


128  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

the  Rock,  —  a  life  at  the  last  lonely  and  cheerless  and 
embittered  by  the  sight  of  his  ancient  enemy  preening 
his  feathers  in  Cradle  Bay.  Old  Donald  had  lived  for 
thirty  years  unable  to  return  a  blow  which  had  scarred 
his  face  and  his  heart  in  the  same  instant.  But  his  son 
felt  that  he  was  making  better  headway.  It  is  unlikely 
that  Donald  MacRae  ever  looked  at  Gower's  cottage 
nestling  like  a  snowflake  in  the  green  lee  of  Point  Old, 
or  cast  his  eyes  over  that  lost  estate  of  his,  with  more 
unchristian  feelings  than  did  his  son.  In  Jack  Mac- 
Rae's  mind  the  Golden  Rule  did  not  apply  to  Horace 
Gower,  nor  to  aught  in  which  Gower  was  concerned. 

So  he  stayed  on  Folly  Bay  territory  with  a  dual  pur- 
pose :  to  make  money  for  himself,  and  to  deprive  Gower 
of  profit  where  he  could.  He  was  wise  enough  to  know 
that  was  the  only  way  he  could  hurt  a  man  like 
Gower.  And  he  wanted  to  hurt  Gower.  The  intensity 
of  that  desire  grew.  It  was  a  point  of  honor,  the  old 
inborn  clan  pride  that  never  compromised  an  injury  or 
an  insult  or  an  injustice,  which  neither  forgave  nor 
forgot. 

For  weeks  MacRae  in  the  Blackbird  and  Vin  Ferrara 
in  her  sister  ship  flitted  here  and  there.  The  purse 
seiners  hunted  the  schooling  salmon,  the  cohoes  and 
humps.  The  gill-netters  hung  on  the  seiner's  heels,  be- 
cause where  the  purse  seine  could  get  a  haul  so  could 
they.  And  the  carriers  and  buyers  sought  the  fisher- 
men wherever  they  went,  to  buy  and  carry  away  their 
catch. 

Folly  Bay  suffered  bad  luck  from  the  beginning. 
Gower  had  four  purse-seine  boats  in  commission.  Within 
a  week  one  broke  a  crankshaft  in  half  a  gale  off  Sangster 
Island.  The  wind  put  her  ashore  under  the  nose  of 
the  sandstone  Elephant  and  the  seas   destroyed  her. 


PERIL  OF  THE  SEA  129 

Fire  gutted  a  second  not  long  after,  so  that  for  weeks 
she  was  laid  up  for  repairs.  That  left  him  but  two 
efficient  craft.  One  operated  on  his  concessions  along 
the  mainland  shore.  The  other  worked  three  stream 
mouths  on  Vancouver  Island,  straight  across  from  Folly 
Bay. 

Still,  Gower's  cannery  was  getting  salmon.  In  those 
three  bays  no  other  purse  seiner  could  shoot  his  gear. 
Folly  Bay  held  them  under  exclusive  license.  Gill  nets 
could  be  drifted  there,  but  the  purse  seiner  was  king. 

A  gill  net  goes  out  over  a  boat's  stern.  When  it  is 
strung  it  stands  in  the  sea  like  a  tennis  net  across  a 
court,  a  web  nine  hundred  feet  long,  twenty  feet  deep, 
its  upper  edge  held  afloat  by  corks,  its  lower  sunk  by 
lead  weights  spaced  close  together.  The  outer  end  is 
buoyed  to  a  float  which  carries  a  flag  and  a  lantern ;  the 
inner  is  fast  to  the  bitts  of  the  launch.  Thus  set,  and 
set  in  the  evening,  since  salmon  can  only  be  taken  by  the 
gills  in  the  dark,  fisherman,  launch,  and  net  drift  with 
the  changing  tides  till  dawn.  Then  he  hauls.  He  may 
have  ten  salmon,  or  a  hundred,  or  treble  that.  He  may 
have  none,  and  the  web  be  torn  by  sharks  and  fouled 
heavy  with  worthless  dogfish. 

The  purse  seiner  works  in  daylight,  off  a  powerfully 
engined  sixty-foot,  thirty-ton  craft.  He  pays  the  seine 
out  over  a  roller  on  a  revolving  platform  aft.  His  ves- 
sel moves  slowly  in  a  sweeping  circle  as  the  net  goes 
out,  —  a  circle  perhaps  a  thousand  feet  in  diameter. 
When  the  circle  is  complete  the  two  ends  of  the  net 
meet  at  the  seiner's  stern.  A  power  winch  hauls  on 
ropes  and  the  net  closes.  Nothing  escapes.  It  draws 
together  until  it  is  a  bag,  a  "  purse "  drawn  up  under 
the  vessel's  counter,  full  of  glistening  fish. 

The  salmon  is  a  surface  fish,  his  average  depth  seldom 


130  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

below  four  fathoms.  He  breaks  water  when  he  feeds, 
when  he  plays,  when  he  runs  in  schools.  The  purse 
seiner  watches  the  signs.  When  the  salmon  rise  in 
numbers  he  makes  a  set.  To  shoot  the  gear  and  purse 
the  seine  is  a  matter  of  minutes.  A  thousand  salmon 
at  a  haul  is  nothing.  Three  thousand  is  common.  Five 
thousand  is  far  below  the  record.  Purse  seines  have 
been  burst  by  the  dead  weight  of  fish  against  the  pull 
of  the  winch. 

The  purse  seine  is  a  deadly  trap  for  schooling  sal- 
mon. And  because  the  salmon  schools  in  mass  for- 
mation, crowding  nose  to  tail  and  side  to  side,  in  the 
entrance  to  a  fresh-water  stream,  the  Fisheries  Depart- 
ment having  granted  a  monopoly  of  seining  rights  to 
a  packer  has  also  benevolently  decreed  that  no  purse 
seine  or  other  net  shall  operate  within  a  given  distance 
of  a  stream  mouth,  —  that  the  salmon,  having  won  to 
fresh  water,  shall  go  free  and  his  kind  be  saved  from 
utter  extinction. 

These  regulations  are  liot  drawn  for  sentimental 
reasons,  only  to  preserve  the  salmon  industry.  The 
farmer  saves  wheat  for  his  next  year's  seeding,  instead 
of  selling  the  last  bushel  to  the  millers.  No  man  will- 
fully kills  the  goose  that  lays  him  golden  eggs.  But 
the  salmon  hunter,  eagerly  pursuing  the  nimble  dollar, 
sometimes  grows  rapacious  in  the  chase  and  breaks  laws 
of  his  own  devising,  —  if  a  big  haul  promises  and  no 
Fisheries  Inspector  is  by  to  restrain  him.  The  cannery 
purse  seiners  are  the  most  frequent  offenders.  They  can 
make  their  haul  quickly  in  forbidden  waters  and  get 
away.  Folly  Bay,  shrewdly  paying  its  seine  crews  a 
bonus  per  fish  on  top  of  wages,  had  always  been  notori- 
ous for  crowding  the  law. 

Solomon  River  takes  its  rise  in  the  mountainous  back- 


PERIL  OF  THE  SEA  131 

bone  of  Vancouver  Island.  It  is  a  wide,  placid  stream 
on  its  lower  reaches,  flowing  through  low,  timbered  re- 
gions, emptying  into  the  Gulf  in  a  half-moon  bay  called 
the  Jew's  Mouth,  which  is  a  perfect  shelter  from  the 
Gulf  storms  and  the  only  such  shelter  in  thirty  miles  of 
bouldery  shore  line.  The  beach  runs  northwest  and 
southeast,  bleak  and  open,  undented.  In  all  that 
stretch  there  is  no  point  from  behind  which  a  Fisheries 
Patrol  launch  could  steal  unexpectedly  into  the  Jew's 
Mouth. 

Upon  a  certain  afternoon  the  Blackbird  lay  therein. 
At  her  stem,  fast  by  light  lines  to  her  after  bitts, 
clung  half  a  dozen  fish  boats,  blue  wisps  of  smoke 
drifting  from  the  galley  stovepipes,  the  fishermen  vari- 
ously occupied.  The  Blackbird's  hold  was  empty  ex- 
cept for  ice.  She  was  waiting  for  fish,  and  the  Bluebird 
was  due  on  the  same  errand  the  following  day. 

Nearer  shore  another  cluster  of  gill-netters  was  an- 
chored, a  Jap  or  two,  and  a  Siwash  Indian  with  his  hull 
painted  a  gaudy  blue.  And  in  the  middle  of  the  Jew's 
Mouth,  which  was  a  scant  six  hundred  yards  across  at 
its  widest,  the  Folly  Bay  No.  5  swung  on  her  anchor 
chain.  A  tubby  cannery  tender  lay  alongside.  The 
crews  were  busy  with  picaroons  forking  salmon  out  of 
the  seiner  into  the  tender's  hold.  The  flip-flop  of  the 
fish  sounded  distinctly  in  that  quiet  place.  Their  silver 
bodies  flashed  in  the  sun  as  they  were  thrown  across  the 
decks. 

When  the  tender  drew  clear  and  passed  out  of  the 
bay  she  rode  deep  with  the  weight  of  salmon  aboard. 
Without  the  Jew's  Mouth,  around  the  Blackbird  and 
the  fish  boats  and  the  No.  5  the  salmon  were  thresh- 
ing water.  Klop.  A  flash  of  silver.  Bubbles.  A  series 
of  concentric  rings  that  ran  away  in  ripples,  till  they 


132  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

merged  into  other  widening  rings.  They  were  every- 
where. The  river  was  full  of  them.  The  bay  was  alive 
with  them. 

A  boat  put  off  from  the  seiner.  The  man  rowed  out 
of  the  Jew's  Mouth  and  stopped,  resting  on  his  oars. 
He  remained  there,  in  approximately  the  same  position. 
A  sentry. 

The  No,  5  heaved  anchor,  the  chain  clanMng  and 
chattering  in  a  hawsepipe.  Her  exhaust  spat  smoky, 
gaseous  fumes.  A  bell  clanged.  She  moved  slowly 
ahead,  toward  the  river's  mouth,  a  hundred  yards  to 
one  side  of  it.  Then  the  brown  web  of  the  seine  began 
to  spin  out  over  the  stem.  She  crossed  the  mouth  of 
the  Solomon,  holding  as  close  in  as  her  draft  permitted, 
and  kept  on  straight  till  her  seine  was  paid  out  to  the 
end.  Then  she  stopped,  lying  still  in  dead  water  with 
her  engine  idling. 

The  tide  was  on  the  flood.  Salmon  run  streams  on 
a  rising  tide.  And  the  seine  stood  like  a  wall  across  the 
river's  mouth. 

Every  man  watching  knew  what  the  seiner  was  about, 
in  defiance  of  the  law.  The  salmon,  nosing  into  the 
stream,  driven  by  that  imperative  urge  which  is  the 
law  of  their  being,  struck  the  net,  turned  aside,  swam 
in  a  slow  circle  and  tried  again  and  again,  seeking  free 
passage,  until  thousands  of  them  were  massed  behind 
the  barrier  of  the  net.  Then  the  No.  5  would  close  the 
net,  tauten  the  ropes  which  made  it  a  purse,  and  haul 
out  into  deep  water. 

It  was  the  equivalent  of  piracy  on  the  high  seas.  To 
be  taken  in  the  act  meant  fines,  imprisonment,  confisca- 
tion of  boat  and  gear.  But  the  No.  5  would  not  be 
caught.  She  had  a  guard  posted.  Cannery  seiners 
were  never  caught.     When  they  were  they  got  off  with 


PERIL  OF  THE  SEA  133 

a  warning  and  a  reprimand.  Only  gill-netters,  the  small 
fry  of  the  salmon  industry,  ever  paid  the  utmost  penalty 
for  raids  like  that.  So  the  fishermen  said,  with  a  cynical 
twist  of  their  lips. 

"Look  at  'em,"  one  said  to  MacRae.  "They  make 
laws  and  break  'em  themselves.  They  been  doin'  that 
every  day  for  a  week.  If  one  of  us  set  a  piece  of  net  in 
the  river  and  took  three  hundred  salmon  the  canners 
would  holler  their  heads  off.  There  'd  be  a  patrol  boat 
on  our  heels  all  the  time  if  they  thought  we'd  take  a 
chance." 

"  Well,  I  'm  about  ready  to  take  a  chance,"  another 
man  growled.  "  They  clear  the  bay  in  daylight  and  all 
we  get  is  their  leavings  at  night." 

The  No.  5  pursed  her  seine  and  hauled  out  until  she 
was  abreast  of  the  Blackbird,  She  drew  close  up  to 
her  massive  hull  a  great  heap  of  salmon,  struggling, 
twisting,  squirming  within  the  net.  The  loading  began. 
Her  men  laughed  and  shouted  as  they  worked.  The  gill- 
net  fishermen  watched  silently,  scowling.  It  was  like 
taking  bread  out  of  their  mouths.  It  was  like  an  honest 
man  restrained  by  a  policeman's  club  from  taking 
food  when  he  is  hungry,  and  seeing  a  thief  fill  his 
pockets  and  walk  off  unmolested. 

"Four  thousand  salmon  that  shot,"  Dave  Mullen 
said,  the  same  Mullen  who  had  talked  to  MacRae  in 
Squitty  one  night.  "  Say,  why  should  we  stand  for 
that?    We  can  get  salmon  that  way  too." 

He  spoke  directly  to  MacRae. 

"  What 's  sauce  for  the  goose  ought  to  be  sauce  for 
the  gander,"  MacRae  replied.  "  I  '11  take  the  fish  if 
you  get  them." 

"You  aren't  afraid  of  getting  in  wrong  yourself.?" 
the  man  asked  him. 


134  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

MacRae  shook  his  head.  He  did  not  lean  to  lawless- 
ness. But  the  cannery  men  had  framed  this  law.  They 
cried  loudly  and  continually  for  its  strict  enforcement. 
And  they  violated  it  flagrantly  themselves,  or  winked 
at  its  violation  when  that  meant  an  added  number  of 
cases  to  their  pack.  Not  alone  in  the  Jew's  Mouth; 
all  along  the  British  Columbia  coast  the  purse  seiners 
forgot  the  law  when  the  salmon  swarmed  in  a  stream 
mouth  and  they  could  make  a  killing.  Only  canneries 
could  hold  a  purse-seine  license.  If  the  big  men  would 
not  honor  their  own  law,  why  should  the  lesser.?  So 
MacRae  felt  and  said. 

The  men  in  the  half-dozen  boats  about  his  stern  had 
dealt  all  the  season  with  MacRae.  They  trusted  him. 
They  neither  liked  nor  trusted  Folly  Bay.  Folly  Bay 
was  not  only  breaking  the  law  in  the  Jew's  Mouth,  but 
in  breaking  thie  law  they  were  making  it  hard  for  these 
men  to  earn  a  dollar  legitimately.  Superior  equipment, 
special  privilege,  cold-blooded  violation  of  law  because 
it  was  safe  and  profitable,  gave  the  purse  seiner  an  un- 
fair advantage.  The  men  gathered  in  a  little  knot  on 
the  deck  of  one  boat.  They  put  their  heads  together 
and  lowered  their  voices.  MacRae  knew  they  were 
angry,  that  they  had  reached  the  point  of  fighting  fire 
with  fire.  And  he  smiled  to  himself.  He  did  not  know 
what  they  were  planning,  but  he  could  guess.  It  would 
not  be  the  first  time  the  individual  fishermen  had  kicked 
over  the  traces  and  beaten  the  purse  seiners  at  their 
own  game.  They  did  not  include  him  in  their  council. 
He  was  a  buyer.  It  was  not  his  function  to  inquire 
how  they  took  their  fish.  If  they  could  take  salmon 
which  otherwise  the  No.  5  would  take,  so  much  the 
worse  for  Folly  Bay,  —  and  so  much  the  better  for  the 
fishermen,  who  earned  their  living  precariously  at  best. 


PERIL  OF  THE  SEA  135 

It  was  dusk  when  the  purse  seiner  finished  loading 
her  catch  and  stowed  the  great  net  in  a  dripping  heap 
on  the  turntable  aft.  At  daylight  or  before,  a  cannery 
tender  would  empty  her,  and  she  would  sweep  the  Jew's 
Mouth  bare  of  salmon  again. 

With  dusk  also  the  fishermen  were  busy  over  their 
nets,  still  riding  to  the  Blackbird^s  stem.  Then  they 
moved  oif  in  the  dark.  MacRae  could  hear  nets  paying 
out.  He  saw  lanterns  set  to  mark  the  outer  end  of  each 
net.  Silence  fell  on  the  bay.  A  single  riding  light 
glowed  at  the  No,  5's  masthead.  Her  cabin  lights 
blinked  out.  Her  crew  sprawled  in  their  bunks,  sound 
asleep. 

Under  cover  of  the  night  the  fishermen  took  pattern 
from  the  seiner's  example.  A  gill  net  is  nine  hundred 
feet  long,  approximately  twenty  feet  deep.  They 
stripped  the  cork  floats  oif  one  and  hung  it  to  the  lead- 
line of  another.  Thus  with  a  web  forty  feet  deep  they 
went  stealthily  up  to  the  mouth  of  the  Solomon.  With 
a  four-oared  skiff  manning  each  end  of  the  nine  hun- 
dred-foot length  they  swept  their  net  around  the  Jew's 
Mouth,  closed  it  like  a  purse  seine,  and  hauled  it  out 
into  the  shallows  of  a  small  beach.  They  stood  in  the 
shallow  water  with  sea  boots  on  and  forked  the  salmon 
into  their  rowboats  and  laid  the  rowboats  alongside  the 
Blackbird  to  deliver, — all  in  the  dark  without  a  lantern 
flicker,  with  mufiled  oarlocks  and  hushed  voices.  Three 
times  they  swept  the  bay. 

At  five  in  the  morning,  before  it  was  lightening  in 
the  east,  the  Blackbird  rode  four  inches  below  her  load 
water  line  with  a  mixed  cargo  of  coho  and  dog  salmon, 
the  heaviest  cargo  ever  stowed  under  her  hatches, — 
and  eight  fishermen  divided  two  thousand  dollars  share 
and  share  alike  for  their  night's  work. 


136  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

MacRae  battened  his  hatch  covers,  started  his  engine, 
heaved  up  the  hook,  and  hauled  out  of  the  bay. 

In  the  Gulf  the  obscuring  clouds  parted  to  lay  a  shaft 
of  silver  on  smooth,  windless  sea.  The  Blackbird  wal- 
lowed down  the  moon-trail.  MacRae  stood  at  the  steer- 
ing wheel.  Beside  him  Steve  Ferrara  leaned  on  the  low 
cabin. 

"  She  ^s  getting  day,"  Steve  said,  after  a  long  silence. 
He  chuckled.  "  Some  raid.  If  they  can  keep  that  lick 
up  those  boys  will  all  have  new  boats  for  next  season. 
You'll  break  old  Gower  if  you  keep  on.  Jack." 

The  thought  warmed  MacRae.  To  break  Gower,  to 
pull  him  down  to  where  he  must  struggle  for  a  living 
like  other  common  men,  to  deprive  him  of  the  power  he 
had  abused,  to  make  him  suffer  as  such  a  man  would 
suffer  under  that  turn  of  fortune,  —  that  would  help 
to  square  accounts.  It  would  be  only  a  measure  of  jus- 
tice. To  be  dealt  with  as  he  had  dealt  with  others, — 
MacRae  asked  no  more  than  that  for  himself. 

But  it  was  not  likely,  he  reflected.  One  bad  season 
would  not  seriously  involve  a  wary  old  bird  like  Horace 
Gower.  He  was  too  secure  behind  manifold  bulwarks. 
Still  in  the  end,  —  more  spectacular  things  had  come 
to  pass  in  the  affairs  of  men  on  this  kaleidoscopic 
coast.  MacRae's  face  was  hard  in  the  moonlight.  His 
eyes  were  somber.  It  was  an  ugly  feeling  to  nurse.  For 
thirty  years  that  sort  of  impotent  bitterness  must  have 
rankled  in  his  father's  breast  —  with  just  cause,  Mac- 
Rae told  himself  moodily.  No  wonder  old  Donald  had 
been  a  grave  and  silent  man;  a  just,  kindly,  generous 
man,  too.  Other  men  had  liked  him,  respected  him. 
Gower  alone  had  been  implacable. 

Well  into  the  red  and  yellow  dawn  MacRae  stood  at 
the  wheel,  thinking  of  this,  an  absent  look  in  eyes  which 


PERIL  OF  THE  SEA  137 

still  kept  keen  watch  ahead.  He  was  glad  when  it  came 
time  for  Steve's  watch  on  deck,  and  he  could  lie  down 
and  let  sleep  drive  it  out  of  his  mind.  He  did  not  live 
solely  to  revenge  himself  upon  Horace  Gower.  He  had 
his  own  way  to  make  and  his  own  plans  —  even  if  they 
were  still  a  bit  nebulous  —  to  fulfill.  It  was  only  now 
and  then  that  the  past  saddened  him  and  made  him 
bitter. 

The  week  following  brought  great  runs  of  salmon  to 
the  Jew's  Mouth.  Of  these  the  Folly  Bay  No.  5  some- 
how failed  to  get  the  lion's  share.  The  gill-net  men 
laughed  in  their  soiled  sleeves  and  furtively  swept  the 
bay  clear  each  night  and  all  night,  and  the  daytime  haul 
of  the  seine  fell  far  below  the  average.  The  Blackbird 
and  the  Bluebird  waddled  down  a  placid  Gulf  with  all 
they  could  carry. 

And  although  there  was  big  money-making  in  this 
short  stretch,  and  the  secret  satisfaction  of  helping  put 
another  spoke  in  Gower's  wheel,  MacRae  did  not 
neglect  the  rest  of  his  territory  nor  the  few  troUers  that 
still  worked  Squitty  Island.  He  ran  long  hours  to  get 
their  few  fish.  It  was  their  living,  and  MacRae  would 
not  pass  them  up  because  their  catch  meant  no  profit 
compared  to  the  time  he  spent  and  the  fuel  he  burned 
making  this  round.  He  would  drive  straight  up  the 
Gulf  from  Bellingham  to  Squitty,  circle  the  Island  and 
then  across  to  the  mouth  of  the  Solomon.  The  weather 
was  growing  cool  now.  Salmon  would  keep  unspoiled 
a  long  time  in  a  troller's  hold.  It  did  not  matter  to 
him  whether  it  was  day  or  night  around  Squitty.  He 
drove  his  carrier  into  any  nook  or  hole  where  a  troller 
might  lie  waiting  with  a  few  salmon. 

The  Blackbird  came  pitching  and  diving  into  a 
heavy   southeast   swell  up   along   the  western    side   of 


138  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

Squitty  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  black  of  an  early  October 
night.  There  was  a  storm  brewing,  a  wicked  one,  reck- 
oned by  the  headlong  drop  of  the  aneroid.  MacRae 
had  a  hundred  or  so  salmon  aboard  for  all  his  Squitty 
round,  and  he  had  yet  to  pick  up  those  on  the  boats  in 
the  Cove.  He  cocked  his  eye  at  a  cloud-wrack  streaking 
above,  driving  before  a  wind  which  had  not  yet  dropped 
to  the  level  of  the  Gulf,  and  he  said  to  himself  that 
it  would  be  wise  to  stay  in  the  Cove  that  night.  A 
southeast  gale,  a  beam  sea,  and  the  tiny  opening  of  the 
Jew's  Mouth  was  a  bad  combination  to  face  in  a  black 
night.  As  he  stood  up  along  Squitty  he  could  hear  the 
swells  break  along  the  shore.  Now  and  then  a  cold  puiF 
of  air,  the  forerunner  of  the  big  wind,  struck  him.  Driv- 
ing full  speed  the  Blackbird  dipped  her  bow  deep  in 
each  sea  and  rose  dripping  to  the  next.  He  passed 
Cradle  Bay  at  last,  almost  under  the  steep  cliffs,  hold- 
ing in  to  round  Poor  Man's  Rock  and  lay  a  compass 
course  to  the  mouth  of  Squitty  Cove. 

And  as  he  put  his  wheel  over  and  swept  around  the 
Rock  and  came  clear  of  Point  Old  a  shadowy  thing 
topped  by  three  lights  in  a  red  and  green  and  white 
triangle  seemed  to  leap  at  him  out  of  the  darkness.  The 
lights  showed,  and  under  the  lights  white  water  hissing. 
MacRae  threw  his  weight  on  the  wheel.  He  shouted  to 
Steve  Ferrara,  lying  on  his  bunk  in  the  little  cabin  aft. 

He  knew  the  boat  instantly,  —  the  Arrow  shooting 
through  the  night  at  twenty  miles  an  hour,  scurrying 
to  shelter  under  the  full  thrust  of  her  tremendous 
power.  For  an  appreciable  instant  her  high  bow  loomed 
over  him,  while  his  hands  twisted  the  wheel.  But  the 
Blackbird  was  heavy,  sluggish  on  her  helm.  She  swung 
a  little,  from  square  across  the  rushing  Arrow,  to  a 
sli^t  angle.    Two  seconds  would  have  cleared  him.    By 


PERIL  OF  THE  SEA  139 

the  rules  of  the  road  at  sea  the  Blackbird  had  the  right 
of  way.  If  MacRae  had  held  by  the  book  this  speeding 
mass  of  mahogany  and  brass  and  steel  would  have  cut 
him  in  two  amidships.  As  it  was,  her  high  bow,  the 
stem  shod  with  a  cast  bronze  cutwater  edged  like  a 
knife,  struck  him  on  the  port  quarter,  sheared  through 
guard,  planking,  cabin. 

There  was  a  crash  of  riven  timbers,  the  crunching 
ring  of  metal,  quick  oaths,  a  cry.  The  Arrow  scarcely 
hesitated.  She  had  cut  away  nearly  the  entire  stem 
works  of  the  Blackbird.  But  such  was  her  momen- 
tum that  the  shock  barely  slowed  her  up.  Her  hull 
bumped  the  Blackbird  aside.  She  passed  on.  She  did 
not  even  stand  by  to  see  what  she  had  done.  There  was 
a  sound  of  shouting  on  her  decks,  but  she  kept  on. 

MacRae  could  have  stepped  aboard  her  as  she 
brushed  by.  Her  rail  was  within  reach  of  his  hand. 
But  that  did  not  occur  to  him.  Steve  Ferrara  wa» 
asleep  in  the  cabin,  in  the  path  of  that  destroying 
stem.  For  a  stunned  moment  MacRae  stood  as  the 
Arrow  drew  clear.  The  Blackbird  began  to  settle 
under  his  feet. 

MacRae  dived  down  the  after  companion.  He  went 
into  water  to  his  waist.  His  hands,  groping  blindly, 
laid  hold  of  clothing,  a  limp  body.  He  struggled  back, 
up,  gained  the  deck,  dragging  Steve  after  him.  The 
Blackbird  was  deep  by  the  holed  stem  now,  awash  to 
her  after  fish  hatch.  She  rose  slowly,  like  a  log,  on 
each  swell.  Only  the  buoyancy  of  her  tanks  and  tim- 
bers kept  her  from  the  last  plunge.  There  was  a  light 
skiff  bottom  up  across  her  hatches  by  the  steering 
wheel.  MacRae  moved  warily  toward  that,  holding  to 
the  bulwark  with  one  hand,  dragging  Steve  with  the 
other  lest  a  sea  sweep  them  both  away. 


140  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

He  noticed,  with  his  brain  functioning  unruffled,  that 
the  Arrow  drove  headlong  into  Cradle  Bay.  He  could 
hear  her  exhaust  roaring.  He  could  still  hear  shout- 
ing. And  he  could  see  also  that  the  wind  and  the  tide 
and  the  roll  of  the  swells  carried  the  water-logged  hulk 
of  the  Blackbird  in  the  opposite  direction.  She  was 
past  the  Rock,  but  she  was  edging  shoreward,  in  under 
the  granite  walls  that  ran  between  Point  Old  and  the 
Cove.  He  steadied  himself,  keeping  his  hold  on  Steve, 
and  reached  for  the  skiiF.  As  his  fingers  touched  it  a 
comber  flung  itself  up  out  of  the  black  and  shot  two 
feet  of  foam  and  green  water  across  the  swamped  hull. 
It  picked  up  the  light  cedar  skiff  like  a  chip  and  cast 
it  beyond  his  reach  and  beyond  his  sight.  And  as  he 
clung  to  the  cabin  pipe-rail,  drenched  with  the  cold 
sea,  he  heard  that  big  roller  burst  against  the  shore  very 
near  at  hand.  He  saw  the  white  spray  lift  ghostly 
in  the  black. 

MacRae  held  his  hand  over  Steve's  heart,  over  his 
mouth  to  feel  if  he  breathed.  Then  he  got  Steve's  body 
between  his  legs  to  hold  him  from  slipping  away,  and 
bracing  himself  against  the  sodden  lurch  of  the  wreck, 
began  to  take  off  his  clothes. 


CHAPTER   XII 

Between  Sun  and  Sun 

Walking  when  he  could,  crawling  on  hands  and  knees 
when  his  legs  buckled  under  him,  MacRae  left  a  blood- 
sprinkled  trail  over  grass  and  moss  and  fallen  leaves. 
He  lived  over  and  over  that  few  minutes  which  had 
seemed  so  long,  in  which  he  had  been  battered  against 
broken  rocks,  in  which  he  had  clawed  over  weedy  ledges 
armored  with  barnacles  that  cut  like  knives,  hauling 
Steve  Ferrara's  body  with  him  so  that  it  should  not 
become  the  plaything  of  the  tides.  MacRae  was  no 
stranger  to  death.  He  had  seen  it  in  many  terrible 
forms.  He  had  heard  the  whistle  of  the  invisible  scythe 
that  cuts  men  down.  He  knew  that  Steve  was  dead 
when  he  dragged  him  at  last  out  of  the  surf,  up  where 
nothing  but  high-flung  drops  of  spray  could  reach  him. 
He  left  him  there  on  a  mossy  ledge,  knowing  that  he 
could  do  nothing  more  for  Steve  Ferrara  and  that  he 
must  do  something  for  himself.  So  he  came  at  last  to 
the  end  of  that  path  which  led  to  his  own  house  and 
crept  and  stumbled  up  the  steps  into  the  deeper  dark- 
ness of  those  hushed,  lonely  rooms. 

MacRae  knew  he  had  suffered  no  vital  hurt,  no 
broken  bones.  But  he  had  been  fearfuljy  buffeted 
among  those  sea-drenched  rocks,  bruised  from  head  to 
foot,  shocked  by  successive  blows.  He  had  spent  his 
strength  to  keep  the  sea  from  claiming  Steve.     He  had 


142  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

been  unmercifully  slashed  by  the  barnacles.  He  was 
weak  from  loss  of  blood,  and  he  was  bleeding  yet,  in 
oozy  streams,  —  face,  hands,  shoulders,  knees,  wherever 
those  lance-edged  shells  had  raked  his  flesh. 

He  was  sick  and  dizzy.  But  he  could  still  think  and 
act.  He  felt  his  way  to  matches  on  a  kitchen  shelf, 
staggered  into  his  bedroom,  lit  a  lamp.  Out  of  a  dresser 
drawer  he  took  clean  white  cloth,  out  of  another  car- 
bolic acid.     He  got  himself  a  basin  of  water. 

He  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  his  bed.  As  he  tore  the 
first  strip  of  linen  things  began  to  swim  before  his 
eyes.  He  sagged  back  on  a  pillow.  The  room  and  the 
lamp  and  all  that  was  near  him  blended  in  a  misty  swirl. 
He  had  the  extraordinary  sensation  of  floating  lightly 
in  space  that  was  quiet  and  profoundly  dark  —  and 
still  he  was  cloudily  aware  of  footsteps  ringing  hollow 
on  the  bare  floor  of  the  other  room. 

He  became  aware — ^as  if  no  interval  had  elapsed  — 
of  being  moved,  of  hands  touching  him,  of  a  stinging 
sensation  of  pain  which  he  understood  to  be  the  smart- 
ing of  the  cuts  in  his  flesh.  But  time  must  have  gone 
winging  by,  he  knew,  as  his  senses  grew  clearer.  He 
was  stripped  of  his  sodden,  bloody  undershirt  and 
overalls,  partly  covered  by  his  blanket.  He  could  feel 
bandages  on  his  legs,  on  one  badly  slashed  arm.  He 
made  out  Betty  Gower^s  face  with  its  unruly  mass  of 
reddish-brown  hair  and  two  rose  spots  of  color  glow- 
ing on  her  smooth  cheeks.  There  was  also  a  tall  young 
man,  coatless,  showing  a  white  expanse  of  flannel  sliirt 
with  the  sleeves  rolled  above  his  elbows.  MacRae  could 
only  see  this  out  of  one  comer  of  his  eye,  for  he  was 
being  turned  gently  over  on  his  face.  Weak  and  pas- 
sive as  he  was,  the  firm  pressure  of  Betty's  soft  hands 
on  his  skin  gave  him  a  curiously  pleasant  sensation. 


BETWEEN  SUN  AND  SUN  143 

He  heard  her  draw  her  breath  sharply  and  make 
some  exclamation  as  his  bare  back  turned  to  the  light. 

"This  chap  has  been  to  the  wars,  eh,  Miss  Gower?  " 
he  heard  the  man  say.  "  Those  are  machine-gun  marks, 
I  should  say — close  range,  too.  I  saw  plenty  of  that 
after  the  Argonne." 

"  Such  scars.  How  could  a  man  live  with  holes  like 
that  through  his  body.'*"  Betty  said.  "He  was  in  the 
air  force." 

"  Some  Hun  got  in  a  burst  of  fire  on  him,  sometime, 
then,"  the  man  commented.  "  Did  n't  get  him,  either, 
or  he  would  n't  be  here.  Why,  two  or  three  bullet  holes 
like  that  would  only  put  a  fellow  out  for  a  few  weeks. 
Look  at  him,"  he  tapped  MacRae's  back  with  a  fore- 
finger. "  Shoulders  and  chest  and  arms  like  a  champion 
middle  weight  ready  to  go  twenty  rounds.  And  you  can 
bet  all  your  pin  money.  Miss  Gower,  that  this  man's 
heart  and  lungs  and  nerves  are  away  above  par  or  he 
would  never  have  got  his  wings.  Takes  a  lot  to  down 
those  fellows.  Looks  in  bad  shape  now,  doesn't  he? 
All  cut  and  bruised  and  exhausted.  But  he  '11  be  walk- 
ing about  day  after  to-morrow.  A  little  stiff  and  sore, 
but  otherwise  well  enough." 

"  I  wish  he  'd  open  his  eyes  and  speak,"  Betty  said. 
"How  can  you  tell?    He  may  be  injured  internally." 

The  man  chuckled.  He  did  not  cease  work  as  he 
talked.  He  was  using  a  damp  cloth,  with  a  pungent 
medicated  smell.  Dual  odors  familiar  to  every  man  who 
has  ever  been  in  hospital  assailed  MacRae's  nostrils. 
Wherever  that  damp  cloth  touched  a  cut  it  burned. 
MacRae  listened  drowsily.  He  had  not  the  strength  or 
the  wish  to  do  anything  else. 

"  Heart  action  's  normal.  Respiration  and  tempera- 
ture, ditto,"  he  heard  above  him.     "  Unconsciousne§s  is 


144  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

merely  natural  reaction  from  shock,  nerve  strain,  loss 
of  blood.  You  can  guess  what  sort  of  fight  he  must 
have  made  in  those  breakers.  If  you  were  a  sawbones. 
Miss  Gower,  you  wouldn't  be  uneasy.  I'll  stake  my 
professional  reputation  on  his  injuries  being  superficial. 
Quite  enough  to  knock  a  man  out,  I  grant.  But  a 
physique  of  this  sort  can  stand  a  tremendous  amount 
of  strain  without  serious  effect.  Hand  me  that  adhesive, 
will  you,  please  ?  " 

There  was  an  air  of  unreality  about  the  whole  pro- 
ceeding in  MacRae's  mind.  He  wondered  if  he  would 
presently  wake  up  in  his  bunk  opposite  Steve  and  find 
that  he  had  been  dreaming.  Yet  those  voices,  and  the 
hands  that  shifted  him  tenderly,  and  the  pyjama  coat 
that  was  slipped  on  him  at  last,  were  not  the  stuff  of 
dreams.  No,  the  lights  of  the  Arrow,  the  smash  of  the 
collision,  the  tumbling  seas  which  had  flung  him  against 
the  rocks,  the  dead  weight  of  Steve's  body  in  his  bleed- 
ing arms,  were  not  illusions. 

He  opened  his  eyes  when  they  turned  him  on  his  back. 

"Well,  old  man,  how  do  you  feel.'^"  Betty's  com- 
panion asked  genially. 

"All  right,"  MacRae  said  briefly.  He  found  that 
speech  required  effort.  His  mind  worked  clearly  enough, 
but  his  tongue  was  uncertain,  his  voice  low-pitched, 
husky.  He  turned  his  eyes  on  Betty.  She  tried  to 
smile.  But  her  lips  quivered  in  the  attempt.  MacRae 
looked  at  her  curiously.  But  he  did  not  say  anything. 
In  the  face  of  accomplished  facts,  words  were  rather 
futHe. 

He  closed  his  eyes  again,  only  to  get  a  mental  picture 
of  the  Arrow  leaping  at  him  out  of  the  gloom,  the 
thunder  of  the  swells  bursting  against  the  foot  of  the 
cliffs,  of  Steve  lying  on  that  ledge  alone.     But  nothing 


BETWEEN  SUN  AND  SUN  145 

could  harm  Steve.  Storm  and  cold  and  pain  and  loneli- 
ness were  nothing  to  him,  now. 

He  heard  Betty  speak. 

"  Can  we  do  anything  more?  " 

"Um  —  no,"  the  man  answered.  "Not  for  some 
time,  anyway." 

"Then  I  wish  you  would  go  back  to  the  house  and 
tell  them,"  Betty  said.  "They'll  be  worrying.  I'll 
stay  here." 

"  I  suppose  it  would  be  as  well,"  he  agreed.  "  I  '11 
come  back." 

"  There  's  no  need  for  either  of  you  to  stay  here," 
MacRae  said  wearily.  "You've  stopped  the  bleeding, 
and  you  can't  do  any  more.  Go  home  and  go  to  bed. 
I'm  as  well  alone." 

There  was  a  brief  interval  of  silence.  MacRae  heard 
footsteps  crossing  the  floor,  receding,  going  down  the 
steps.  He  opened  his  eyes.  Betty  Gower  sat  on  a  low 
box  by  his  bed,  her  hands  in  her  lap,  looking  at  him 
wistfully.     She  leaned  a  little  toward  him. 

"  I  'm  awfully  sorry,"  she  whispered. 

"  So  was  the  little  boy  who  cut  off  his  sister's  thumb 
with  the  hatchet,"  MacRae  muttered.  "But  that  did  n't 
help  sister's  thumb.  If  you'll  run  down  to  old  Peter 
Ferrara's  house  and  tell  him  what  has  happened,  and 
then  go  home  yourself,  we  '11  call  it  square." 

"  I  have  already  done  that,"  Betty  said.  "  Dolly  is 
away.  The  fishermen  are  bringing  Steve  Ferrara's 
body  to  his  uncle's  house.  They  are  going  to  try  to 
save  what  is  left  of  your  boat." 

"  It  is  kind  of  you,  I  'm  sure,  to  pick  up  the  pieces," 
MacRae  gibed. 

"  I  am  sorry,"  the  girl  breathed. 

"  After  the  fact.    Belting  around  a  point  in  the  dark 


146  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

at  train  speed,  regardless  of  the  rules  of  the  road. 
Destroying  a  valuable  boat,  killing  a  man.  Property 
is  supposed  to  be  sacred  —  if  life  has  no  market  value. 
Were  you  late  for  dinner?  " 

In  his  anger  he  made  a  quick  movement  with  his  arms, 
flinging  the  blanket  off,  sending  intolerable  pangs 
through  his  bruised  and  torn  body. 

Betty  rose  and  bent  over  him,  put  the  blanket  back 
silently,  tucked  him  in  like  a  mother  settling  the  cover 
about  a  restless  child.  She  did  not  say  anything  for 
a  minute.  She  stood  over  him,  nervously  plucking  bits 
of  lint  off  the  blanket.     Her  eyes  grew  wet. 

"  I  don't  blame  you  for  feeling  that  way,"  she  said 
at  last.  "  It  was  a  terrible  thing.  You  had  the  right 
of  way.  I  don't  know  why  or  how  Robertson  let  it 
happen.  He  has  always  been  a  careful  navigator.  The 
nearness  when  he  saw  you  under  his  bows  must  have 
paralyzed  him,  and  with  our  speed  —  oh,  it  isn't  any 
use,  I  know,  to  tell  you  how  sorry  I  am.  That  won't 
bring  that  poor  boy  back  to  life  again.    It  won't  — " 

"You  killed  him  —  your  kind  of  people — twice," 
MacRae  said  thickly.  *^Once  in  France,  where  he 
risked  his  life  —  all  he  had  to  risk  —  so  that  you  and 
your  kind  should  continue  to  have  ease  and  security. 
He  came  home  wheezing  and  strangling,  suifering  all 
the  pains  of  death  without  death's  relief.  And  when 
he  was  beginning  to  think  he  had  another  chance  you 
finish  him  off.  But  that's  nothing.  A  mere  incident. 
Why  should  you  care?  The  country  is  full  of  Ferraras. 
What  do  they  matter?  Men  of  no  social  or  financial 
standing,  men  who  work  with  their  hands  and  smell  of 
fish.  If  it's  a  shock  to  you  to  see  one  man  dead  and 
another  cut  and  bloody,  think  of  the  numbers  that  suffer 
as  great  pains  and  hardships  that  you  know  nothing 


BETWEEN  SUN  AND  SUN  147 

about  —  and  wouldn't  care  if  you  did.  You  couldn't 
be  what  you  are  and  have  what  you  have  if  they  did  n't. 
Sorry !  Sympathy  is  the  cheapest  thing  in  the  market, 
cheaper  than  salmon.  You  can't  help  Steve  Ferrara 
with  that  —  not  now.  Don't  waste  any  on  me.  I  don't 
need  it.  I  resent  it.  You  may  need  it  all  for  your  own 
before  I  get  through.     I —  I  am — " 

MacRae's  voice  trailed  off  into  an  incoherent  murmur. 
He  seemed  to  be  floating  off  into  those  dark  shadowy 
spaces  again.,  In  reality  he  was  exhausted.  A  man  with 
his  veins  half  emptied  of  blood  cannot  get  in  a  passion 
without  a  speedy  reaction.  MacRae  went  off  into  an 
unconscious  state  which  gradually  became  transformed 
into  natural,  healthy  sleep,  the  deep  slumber  of  utter 
exhaustion. 

At  intervals  thereafter  he  was  hazily  aware  of  some 
one  beside  him,  of  soft  hands  that  touched  him.  Once 
he  wakened  to  find  the  room  empty,  the  lamp  turned 
low.  In  the  dim  light  and  the  hush  the  place  seemed 
imutterably  desolate  and  forsaken,  as  if  he  were  buried 
in  a  crypt.  When  he  listened  he  could  hear  the  melan- 
choly drone  of  the  southeaster  and  the  rumble  of  the 
surf,  two  sounds  that  fitted  well  his  mood.  He  felt  a 
strange  relief  when  Betty  came  tiptoeing  in  from  the 
kitchen.  She  bent  over  him.  MacRae  closed  his  eyes 
and  slept  again. 

He  awakened  at  last,  alert,  refreshed,  free  of  that  de- 
pression which  had  rested  so  heavily  on  him.  And  he 
found  that  weariness  had  caught  Betty  Gower  in  its 
overpowering  grip.  She  had  drawn  her  box  seat  up 
close  beside  him.  Her  body  had  drooped  until  her  arms 
rested  on  the  side  of  the  bed,  and  her  head  rested  on  her 
arms.  MacRae  found  one  of  his  hands  caught  tight  in 
both  hers.    She  was  asleep,  breathing  lightly,  regularly. 


148  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

He  twisted  his  stiffened  neck  to  get  a  better  look  at  her. 
He  could  only  see  one  side  of  her  face,  and  that  he 
studied  a  long  time.  Pretty  and  piquant,  still  it  was  no 
doll's  face.  There  was  character  in  that  firm  mouth 
and  round  chin.  Betty  had  a  beautiful  skin.  That  had* 
been  MacRae's  first  impression  of  her,  the  first  time  he 
saw  her.  And  she  had  a  heavy  mass  of  reddish-brown 
hair  that  shone  in  the  sunlight  with  a  decided  wave  in 
it  which  always  made  it  seem  unruly,  about  to  escape 
from  its  conventional  arrangement. 

MacRae  made  no  attempt  to  free  his  hand.  He  was 
quite  satisfied  to  let  it  be.  The  touch  of  her  warm  flesh 
against  his  stirred  him  a  little,  sent  his  mind  straying 
off  into  strange  channels.  Queer  that  the  first  woman 
to  care  for  him  when  he  crept  wounded  and  shaken  to 
the  shelter  of  his  own  roof  should  be  the  daughter  of 
his  enemy.  For  MacRae  could  not  otherwise  regard 
Horace  Gower.  Anything  short  of  that  seemed  treason 
to  the  gray  old  man  who  had  died  in  the  next  room, 
babbling  of  his  son  and  the  west  wind  and  some  one  he 
called  Bessie. 

MacRae's  eyes  blurred  unexpectedly.  What  a 
damned  shame  things  had  to  be  the  way  they  were. 
Behind  this  girl,  who  was  in  herself  lovely  and  desirable 
as  a  woman  should  be,  loomed  the  pudgy  figure  of  her 
father,  ruthless,  vindictively  unjust.  Gower  hadn't 
struck  at  him  openly;  but  that,  MacRae  believed,  was 
merely  for  lack  of  suitable  opening. 

But  that  did  not  keep  Jack  MacRae  from  thinking  — 
what  every  normal  man  begins  to  think,  or  rather  to 
feel,  soon  or  late  —  that  he  is  incomplete,  insufficient, 
without  some  particular  woman  to  love  him,  upon  whom 
to  bestow  love.  It  was  like  a  revelation.  He  caught 
himself  wishing  that  Betty  would  wake  up  and  smile 


BETWEEN  SUN  AND  SUN  149 

at  him,  bend  over  him  with  a  kiss.  He  stared  up  at  the 
shadowy  roof  beams,  feeling  the  hot  blood  leap  to  his 
face  at  the  thought.  There  was  an  uncanny  magic  in 
the  nearness  of  her,  a  lure  in  the  droop  of  her  tired 
body.  And  MacRae  struggled  against  that  seduction. 
Yet  he  could  not  deny  that  Betty  Gower,  innocently 
sleeping  with  his  hand  fast  in  hers,  filled  him  with  visions 
and  desires  which  had  never  before  focused  with  such 
intensity  on  any  woman  who  had  come  his  way.  Mys- 
teriously she  seemed  absolved  of  all  blame  for  being  a 
Gower,  for  any  of  the  things  the  Gower  clan  had  done 
to  him  and  his,  even  to  the  misfortune  of  that  night 
which  had  cost  a  man  his  life. 

"  It  is  n't  her  fault,"  MacRae  said  to  himself.  "  But, 
Lord,  I  wish  she  'd  kept  away  from  here,  if  this  sort  of 
thing  is  going  to  get  me." 

What  this  was  he  did  not  attempt  to  define.  He  did 
not  admit  that  he  was  hovering  on  the  brink  of  loving 
Betty  Gower — it  seemed  an  incredible  thing  for  him  to 
do  —  but  was  vividly  aware  that  she  had  kindled  an  in- 
comprehensible fire  in  him,  and  he  suspected,  indeed 
he  feared  with  a  fear  that  bordered  on  spiritual  shrink- 
ing, that  it  would  go  on  glowing  after  she  was  gone. 
And  she  would  go  presently.  This  spontaneous  rushing 
to  his  aid  was  merely  what  a  girl  like  that,  with  generous 
impulses  and  quick  sympathy,  would  do  for  any  one  in 
dire  need.  She  would  leave  behind  her  an  inescapable 
longing,  an  emptiness,  a  memory  of  sweetly  disturbing 
visions.  MacRae  seemed  to  see  with  remarkable  clarity 
and  sureness  that  he  would  be  penalized  for  yielding 
to  that  bewitching  fancy.  By  what  magic  had  she  so 
suddenly  made  herself  a  shining  figure  in  a  golden 
dream?  Some  necromancy  of  the  spirit,  invisible  but 
wonderfully  potent.?    Or  was  it  purely  physical,  —  the 


150  POOR  MAN^S  ROCK 

soft  reddish-brown  of  her  hair;  her  frank  gray  eyes, 
very  like  his  own;  the  marvelous,  smooth  clearness 
and  coloring  of  her  skin;  her  voice,  that  was  given  to 
soft  cadences?  He  did  not  know.  No  man  ever  quite 
knows  what  positive  qualities  in  a  woman  can  make  his 
heart  leap.  MacRae  was  no  wiser  than  most.  But  he 
was  not  prone  to  cherish  illusions,  to  deceive  himself. 
He  had  imagination.  That  gave  him  a  key  to  many 
things  which  escape  a  sluggish  mind. 

"Well,"  he  said  to  himself  at  last,  with  a  fatalistic 
humor,  "  if  it  comes  that  way,  it  comes.  If  I  am  to  be 
the  goat,  I  shall  be,  and  that 's  all  there  is  to  it." 

Under  his  breath  he  cursed  Horace  Gower  deeply  and 
fervently,  and  he  was  not  conscious  of  anything  in- 
congruous in  that.  And  then  he  lay  very  thoughtful 
and  a  little  sad,  his  eyes  on  the  smooth  curve  of  Betty's 
cheek  swept  by  long  brown  lashes,  the  comer  of  a  red 
mouth  made  for  kissing.  His  fingers  were  warm  in  hers. 
He  smiled  sardonically  at  a  vagrant  wish  that  they 
might  remain  there  always. 

Whom  the  gods  would  destroy  they  first  make 
mad.  MacRae  wondered  if  the  gods  thus  planned  his 
destruction  ? 

A  tremulous  sigh  warned  him.  He  shut  his  eyes, 
feigned  sleep.  He  felt  rather  than  saw  Betty  sit  up 
with  a  start,  release  his  hand.  Then  very  gently  she 
moved  that  arm  back  under  the  blanket,  reached  across 
him  and  patted  the  covers  close  about  his  body,  stood 
looking  down  at  him. 

And  MacRae  stirred,  opened  his  eyes. 

"What  time  is  it?"  he  asked. 

She  looked  at  a  wrist  watch.  "  Four  o'clock."  She 
shivered. 

"You've   been   here   all   this   time   without    a   fire. 


BETWEEN  SUN  AND  SUN  151 

You're  chilled  through.  Why  didn't  you  go  home? 
You  should  go  now." 

"I  have  been  sitting  here  dozing,"  she  said.  "I 
was  n't  aware  of  the  cold  until  now.  But  there  is  wood 
and  kindling  in  the  kitchen,  and  I  am  going  to  make  a 
fire.     Aren't  you  hungry.?" 

*'  Starving,"  he  said.  "  But  there  is  nothing  to  eat 
in  the  house.     It  has  been  empty  for  months." 

"There  is  tea,"  she  said.  "I  saw  some  on  a  shelf. 
I'll  make  a  cup  of  that.  It  will  be  something  warm, 
refreshing." 

MacRae  listened  to  her  at  the  kitchen  stove.  There 
was  the  clink  of  iron  lids,  the  smell  of  wood  smoke,  the 
pleasant  crackle  of  the  fire.  Presently  she  came  in  with 
two  steaming  cups. 

"  I  have  a  faint  recollection  of  talking  wild  and  large 
a  while  ago,"  MacRae  remarked.  Indeed,  it  seemed 
hazy  to  him  now.    "  Did  I  say  anytliing  nasty  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  she  replied  frankly ;  "  perhaps  the  sting  of 
what  you  said  lay  in  its  being  partly  true.  A  half 
truth  is  sometimes  a  deadly  weapon.  I  wonder  if  you 
do  really  hate  us  as  much  as  your  manner  implied  — 
and  why  ?  " 

"  Us.     Who  ?  "    MacRae  asked. 

"  My  father  and  me,"  she  put  it  bluntly. 

"What  makes  you  think  I  do ?  "  MacRae  asked.  " Be- 
cause I  have  set  up  a  fierce  competition  in  a  business 
where  your  father  has  had  a  monopoly  so  long  that  he 
thinks  this  part  of  the  Gulf  belongs  to  him?  Because 
I  resent  your  running  down  one  of  my  boats?  Because 
I  go  about  my  affairs  in  my  own  way,  regardless  of 
Gower  interests  ?  " 

"  What  do  these  things  amount  to  ?  "  Betty  answered 
impatiently.      "It's   in   your  manner,   your   attitude. 


152  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

Sometimes  it  even  shows  in  your  eyes.  It  was  there 
the  morning  I  came  across  you  sitting  on  Point  Old, 
the  day  after  the  armistice  was  signed.  I  've  danced 
with  you  and  seen  you  look  at  me  as  if  —  as  if,"  she 
laughed  self-consciously,  "  you  would  like  to  wring  my 
neck.  I  have  never  done  anything  to  create  a  dislike 
of  that  sort.  I  have  never  be6n  with  you  without  being 
conscious  that  you  were  repressing  something,  out  of 
—  well,  courtesy,  I  suppose.  There  is  a  peculiar  tension 
about  you  whenever  my  father  is  mentioned.  I'm  not 
a  fool,"  she  finished,  "even  if  I  happen  to  be  one  of 
what  you  might  call  the  idle  rich.  What  is  the  cause 
of  this  bad  blood?" 

"What  does  it  matter.?"  MacRae  parried. 

"There  is  something,  then.?  "  she  persisted. 

MacRae  turned  his  head  away.  He  could  n't  teU  her. 
It  was  not  wholly  his  story  to  tell.  How  could  he  ex- 
pect her  to  see  it,  to  react  to  it  as  he  did?  A  matter 
involving  her  father  and  mother,  and  his  father.  It 
was  not  a  pretty  tale.  He  might  be  influenced  power- 
fully in  a  certain  direction  by  the  account  of  it  passed 
on  by  old  Donald  MacRae;  he  might  be  stirred  by  the 
backwash  of  those  old  passions,  but  he  could  not  lay 
bare  all  that  to  any  one  —  least  of  all  to  Betty  Gower. 
And  still  MacRae,  for  the  moment,  was  torn  between 
two  desires.  He  retained  the  same  implacable  resent- 
ment toward  Gower,  and  he  found  himself  wishing  to 
set  Gower^s  daughter  apart  and  outside  the  conse- 
quences of  that  ancient  feud.  And  that,  he  knew,  was 
trying  to  reconcile  the  irreconcilable.  It  couldn't  be 
done. 

"Was  the  'Arrow  holed  in  the  crash?  " 

Betty  stood  staring  at  him.  She  blinked.  Her  fingers 
began  again  that  nervous  plucking  at  the  blanket.    But 


BETWEEN  SUN  AND  SUN  153 

her  face  settled  presently  into  its  normal  composure 
and  she  answered  evenly. 

"Rather  badly  up  forward.  She  was  settling  fast 
when  they  beached  her  in  the  Bay." 

"And  then,"  she  continued  after  a  pause,  "Doctor 
Wallis  and  I  got  ashore  as  quickly  as  we  could.  We 
got  a  lantern  and  came  along  the  cliffs.  And  two  of 
the  men  took  our  big  lifeboat  and  rowed  along  near  the 
shore.  They  found  the  Blackbird  pounding  on  the 
rocks,  and  we  found  Steve  Ferrara  where  you  left  him. 
And  we  followed  you  here  by  the  blood  you  spattered 
along  the  way." 

A  line  from  the  Rhyme  of  the  Three  Sealers  came 
into  MacRae's  mind  as  befitting.  But  he  was  thinking 
of  his  father  and  not  so  much  of  himself  as  he  quoted; 

"  *  Sorrow  is  me,  in  a  lonely  sea, 
And  a  sinful  fight  I  fall.'" 

"I'm  afraid  I  don't  quite  grasp  that,"  Betty  said. 
"Although  I  know  Kipling  too,  and  could  supply  the 
rest  of  those  verses.    I  'm  afraid,  I  don't  understand." 

"  It  is  n't  likely  that  you  ever  will,"  MacRae  an- 
swered slowly.     "  It  is  not  necessary  that  you  should." 

Their  voices  ceased.  In  the  stillness  the  w^histle  of 
the  wind  and  the  deep  drone  of  the  seas  shattering 
themselves  on  the  granite  lifted  a  dreary  monotone. 
And  presently  a  quick  step  sounded  on  the  porch. 
Doctor  Wallis  came  hurriedly  in. 

"Upon  my  soul,"  he  said  apologetically.  "I  ought 
to  be  shot.  Miss  Gower.  I  got  everybody  calmed  down 
over  at  the  cottage  and  chased  them  all  to  bed.  Then 
I  sat  down  in  a  soft  chair  before  that  cheerful  fire  in 
your  living  room.  And  I  didn't  wake  up  for  hours. 
You  must  be  worn  out." 


154  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

"  That 's  quite  all  right,"  Betty  assured  him.  "Don't 
be  conscience-stricken.     Did  mamma  have  hysterics  ?  " 

Wallis  grinned  cheerfully. 

"  Well,  not  quite,"  he  drawled.  "  At  any  rate,  all 's 
quiet  along  the  Potomac  now.  How 's  the  patient  get- 
ting on  ?  " 

"  I  'm  O.  K.,"  MacRae  spoke  for  himself,  "  and  much 
obliged  to  you  both  for  tinkering  me  up.  Miss  Gower 
ought  to  go  home." 

"I  think  so  myself,"  WaUis  said.  "I'U  take  her 
across  the  point.  Then  I  '11  KJome  back  and  have  an- 
other look  over  you." 

"It  isn't  necessary,"  MacRae  declared.  "Barring 
a  certain  amount  of  soreness  I  feel  fit  enough.  I  sup- 
pose I  could  get  up  and  walk  now  if  I  had  to.  Go 
home  and  go  to  bjed,  both  of  you." 

"Good  night,  or  perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  say 
good  morning."  Betty  gave  him  her  hand.  "  Pleasant 
dreams." 

It  seemed  to  MacRae  that  there  was  a  touch  of 
reproach,  a  hint  of  the  sardonic  in  her  tone  and 
words. 

Then  he  was  alone  in  the  quiet  house,  with  his 
thoughts  for  company,  and  the  distant  noises  of  the 
storm  muttering  in  the  outer  darkness. 

They  were  not  particularly  pleasant  processes  of 
thought.  The  sins  of  the  fathers  shall  be  visited  even 
unto  the  third  and  fourth  generation.  Why,  in  the 
name  of  God,  should  they  be,  he  asked  himself? 

Betty  Gower  liked  him.  She  had  been  trying  to  tell 
him  so.  MacRae  felt  that.  He  did  not  question  too 
<rlosely  the  quality  of  the  feeling  for  her  which  had 
leaped  up  so  unexpectedly.  He  was  afraid  to  dig  too 
deep.  He  had  got  a  glimpse  of  depths  and  eddies  that 
night  which  if  they  did  not  wholly  frighten  him,  at 


BETWEEN  SUN  AND  SUN  155 

least  served  to  confuse  him.  They  were  like  flint  and 
steel,  himself  and  Betty  Gower.  They  could  not  come 
together  without  striking  sparks.  And  a  man  may  long 
to  warm  himself  by  fire,  MacRae  reflected  gloomily,  but 
he  shrinks  from  being  burned. 


CHAPTER   XIII 
An  Interlude 

At  daybreak  Peter  Ferrara  came  to  the  house. 

"  How  are  you  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Sore.  Wobbly."  MacRae  had  tried  his  legs  and 
found  them  wanting. 

"It  was  a  bad  night  all  round,  eh,  lad?"  Peter 
rumbled  in  his  rough  old  voice.  "  Some  of  the  boys 
got  a  line  on  the  Blackbird  and  hauled  what  was  left 
of  her  around  into  the  Cove.  But  she 's  a  ruin.  The 
engine  went  to  pieces  while  she  was  poundin'  on  the 
rocks.  Steve  lays  in  the  house.  He  looks  peaceful  —  as 
if  he  was  glad  to  be  through." 

"  I  could  n't  save  him.  It  was  done  like  that."  Mac- 
Rae snapped  his  fingers. 

"I  know,"  Old  Peter  said.  "You're  not  to  blame. 
Perhaps  nobody  is.  Them  things  happen.  Manuel '11 
feel  it.  He's  lost  both  sons  now.  But  Steve's  better 
off.  He'd  'a'  died  of  consumption  or  something,  slow 
an'  painful.  His  lungs  was  gone.  I  seen  him  set  for 
weeks  on  the  porch  wheezin'  after  he  come  home.  He 
didn't  get  no  pleasure  livin'.  He  said  once  a  bullet 
would  'a'  been  mercy.  No,  don't  worry  about  Steve. 
We  all  come  to  it  soon  or  late,  John.  It 's  never  a  pity 
for  the  old  or  the  crippled  to  die." 

"You  old  Spartan,"  MacRae  muttered. 

"  What 's  that?  "  Peter  asked.  But  MacRae  did  not 
explain.     He  asked  about  Dolly  iustead. 


AN  INTERLUDE  157 

"  She  was  up  to  Potter's  Landing.  I  sent  for  her 
and  she 's  back,"  Peter  told  him.  "  She  '11  be  up  to  see 
you  presently.  There 's  no  grub  in  the  house,  is  there? 
Can  you  eat?    Well,  take  it  easy,  lad." 

An  hour  or  so  later  Dolly  Ferrara  brought  him  a 
steaming  breakfast  on  a  tray.  She  sat  talking  to  him 
while  he  ate. 

"Gower  will  have  to  pay  for  the  Blackbird,  won't 
he?"  she  asked.     "The  fishermen  say  so." 

"  If  he  does  n't  in  one  way  he  will  another,"  MacRae 
answered  indifferently.  "  But  that  does  n't  help  Steve. 
The  boat  does  n't  matter.  One  can  build  boats.  You 
can't  bring  a  man  back  to  life  when  he 's  dead." 

"  If  Steve  could  talk  he  'd  say  he  didn't  care,"  Dolly 
declared  sadly.  "You  know  he  wasn't  getting  much 
out  of  living.  Jack.  There  was  nothing  for  him  to  look 
forward  to  but  a  few  years  of  discomfort  and  uncer- 
tainty. A  man  who  has  been  strong  and  active  rebels 
against  dying  by  inches.  Steve  told  me  —  not  so  very 
long  ago  —  that  if  sometliing  would  finish  him  off 
quickly  he  would  be  glad." 

If  that  had  been,  Stevens  wish,  MacRae  thought,  then 
fate  had  hearkened  to  him.  He  knew  it  was  true.  He 
had  lived  at  elbows  with  Steve  all  summer.  Steve  never 
complained.  He  was  made  of  different  stuff.  It  was 
only  a  gloomy  consolation,  after  all,  to  think  of  Steve 
as  being  better  off.  MacRae  knew  how  men  cling  to  life, 
even  when  it  has  lost  all  its  savor.  There  is  that  im- 
perative will-to-live  which  refuses  to  be  denied. 

Dollj  went  away.  After  a  time  Wallis  came  over 
from  the  cottage  at  Cradle  Bay.  He  was  a  young  and 
genial  medico  from  Seattle,  who  had  just  returned  from 
service  with  the  American  forces  overseas,  and  was 
holidaying  briefly  before  he  took  up  private  practice 


158  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

again.  He  had  very  little  more  than  a  casual  interest 
in  MacRae,  however,  and  he  did  not  stay  long  once  he 
had  satisfied  himself  that  his  patient  had  little  further 
need  of  professional  services.  And  MacRae,  who  was 
weaker  than  he  expected  to  find  himself,  rested  in  his 
bed  until  late  afternoon  brought  bars  of  sunlight  stream- 
ing through  openings  in  the  cloud  bank  which  still  ran 
swift  before  the  wind. 

Then  he  rose,  dressed,  made  his  way  laboriously  and 
painfully  down  to  the  Cove's  edge  and  took  a  brief  look 
at  the  hull  of  the  Blackbird  sunk  to  her  deck  line,  her 
rail  and  cabins  broken  and  twisted.  After  that  he 
hailed  a  fisherman,  engaged  him  to  go  across  to  Solomon 
River  and  apprise  the  Bluebird.  That  accomplished 
he  went  back  to  the  house.  Thereafter  he  spent  days 
lying  on  his  bed,  resting  in  a  big  chair  before  the  fire- 
place while  his  wounds  healed  and  his  strength  came 
back  to  him,  thinking,  planning,  chafing  at  inaction. 

There  was  a  perfunctory  inquest,  after  which  Steve's 
body  went  away  to  Hidalgo  Island  to  rest  beside  the 
bodies  of  other  Ferraras  in  a  plot  of  ground  their 
grandfather  had  taken  for  his  own  when  British  Co- 
lumbia was  a  Crown  colony. 

MacRae  carried  insurance  on  both  his  carriers.  There 
was  no  need  for  him  to  move  against  Gower  in  the  mat- 
ter. The  insurance  people  would  attend  efficiently  to 
that.  The  adjusters  came,  took  over  the  wreck,  made 
inquiries.  MacRae  made  his  formal  claim,  and  it  was 
duly  paid. 

But  long  before  the  payment  was  made  he  was  at 
work,  he  and  Vin  Ferrara  together,  on  the  Bluebird, 
plowing  the  Gulf  in  stormy  autumn  weather.  The 
season  was  far  gone,  the  salmon  run  slackening  to  its 
close.     It  was  too  late  to  equip  another  carrier.     The 


AN  INTERLUDE  159 

echoes  were  gone.  The  dog  salmon,  great-toothed, 
slimy  fish  which  are  canned  for  European  export  —  for 
cheap  trade,  wliich  nevertheless  returned  much  profit  to 
the  canneries  —  were  still  running. 

MacRae  had  taken  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  Folly  Bay 
bluebacks.  He  had  made  tremendous  inroads  on  Folly 
Bay's  take  of  coho  and  humpback.  He  did  not  care 
greatly  if  Gower  filled  his  cans  with  "  dogs."  But  the 
Bellingham  packers  cried  for  salmon  of  whatsoever 
quality,  and  so  MacRae  drove  the  Bluebird  hard  in  a 
trade  which  gave  liim  no  great  profit,  chiefly  to  preserve 
his  connection  with  the  American  canners,  to  harass 
Folly  Bay,  and  to  let  the  fishermen  know  that  he  was 
still  a  factor  and  could  serve  them  well. 

He  was  sick  of  the  smell  of  salmon,  weary  of  the 
eternal  heaving  of  the  sea  under  his  feet,  of  long  cold 
tricks  at  the  wheel,  of  days  in  somber,  driving  rain  and 
nights  without  sleep.  But  he  kept  on  until  the  salmon 
ceased  to  run,  until  the  purse  seiners  tied  up  for  the 
season,  and  the  fishermen  put  by  their  gear. 

MacRae  had  done  well,  —  far  better  than  he  expected. 
His  knife  had  cut  both  ways.  He  had  eighteen  thou- 
sand dollars  in  cash  and  the  Bluebird.  The  Folly  Bay 
pack  was  twelve  thousand  cases  short.  How  much  that 
shortage  meant  in  lost  profit  MacRae  could  only  guess, 
but  it  was  a  pretty  sum.  Another  season  like  that, — 
he  smiled  grimly.  The  next  season  would  be  better,  — 
for  him.  The  trollers  were  all  for  him.  They  went 
out  of  their  way  to  tell  him  that.  He  had  organized 
good  will  behind  him.  The  inen  who  followed  the 
salmon  schools  believed  he  did  not  want  the  earth,  only 
a  decent  share.  He  did  not  sit  behind  a  mahogany  desk 
in  town  and  set  the  price  of  fish.  These  men  had 
labored  a  long  time  under  the  weighty  heel  of  a  con- 


i6o  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

trolled  industry,  and  they  were  thankful  for  a  new  dis- 
pensation. It  gave  MacRae  a  pleasant  feeling  to  know 
this.  It  gave  him  also  something  of  a  contempt  for 
Gower,  who  had  sat  tight  with  a  virtual  monopoly  for 
ten  years  and  along  with  his  profits  had  earned  the 
distrust  and  dislike  of  a  body  of  men  who  might  as 
easily  have  been  loyal  laborers  in  his  watery  vineyards, 
—  if  he  had  not  used  his  power  to  hold  them  to  the 
most  meager  return  they  could  wring  from  the  sea. 

He  came  home  to  the  house  at  Squitty  Cove  with  some 
odds  and  ends  from  town  shops  to  make  it  more  com- 
fortable, flooring  to  replace  the  old,  worn  boards,  a  rug 
or  two,  pictures  that  caught  his  fancy,  new  cushions 
for  the  big  chairs  old  Donald  MacRae  had  fashioned 
by  hand  years  before,  a  banjo  to  pick  at,  and  a  great 
box  of  books  which  he  had  promised  to  read  some  day 
when  he  had  time.  And  he  knew  he  would  have  time 
through  long  winter  evenings  when  the  land  was 
drenched  with  rain,  when  the  storm  winds  howled  in 
the  swaying  firs  and  the  sea  beat  clamorously  along  the 
cliffs.  He  would  sit  with  his  feet  to  a  glowing  fire  and 
read  books. 

He  did,  for  a  time.  When  late  November  laid  down 
a  constant  barrage  of  rain  and  the  cloud  battalions 
marched  and  countermarched  along  the  coast,  MacRae 
had  settled  down.  He  had  no  present  care  upon  his 
shoulders.  Although  he  presumed  himself  to  be  resting, 
he  was  far  from  idle.  He  found  many  ways  of  occupy- 
ing himself  about  the  old  place.  It  was  his  pleasure 
that  the  old  log  house  should  be  neat  within  and  with- 
out, the  yard  clean,  the  garden  restored  to  order.  It 
had  suffered  a  season's  neglect.  He  remedied  that  with 
a  little  labor  and  a  little  money,  wishing,  as  the  place 
took  on  a   sprightlier  air,  that  old  Donald  could  be 


AN  INTERLUDE  i6i 

there  to  see.  MacRae  was  frank  in  liis  affection  for 
the  spot.  No  other  place  that  he  had  ever  seen  meant 
quite  the  same  to  him.  He  was  always  glad  to  come 
back  to  it;  it  seemed  imperative  that  he  should  always 
come  back  there.  It  was  home,  his  refuge,  his  castle. 
Indeed  he  had  seen  castles  across  the  sea  from  whose 
towers  less  goodly  sights  spread  than  he  could  command 
from  his  own  front  door,  now  that  winter  had  stripped 
the  maple  and  alder  of  their  leafy  screen.  There  was 
the  sheltered  Cove  at  his  feet,  the  far  sweep  of  the  Gulf 
—  colored  according  to  its  mood  and  the  weather  — 
great  mountain  ranges  lifting  sheer  from  blue  water, 
their  lower  slopes  green  with  forest  and  their  crests 
white  with  snow.  Immensities  of  land  and  trees.  All 
his  environment  pitched  upon  a  colossal  scale.  It  was 
good  to  look  at,  to  live  among,  and  MacRae  knew  that 
it  was  good. 

He  sat  on  a  log  at  the  brink  of  the  Cove  one  morn- 
ing, in  a  burst  of  sunshine  as  grateful  as  it  was  rare. 
He  looked  out  at  the  mainland  shore,  shading  away 
from  deep  olive  to  a  faint  and  misty  blue.  He  cast  his 
gaze  along  Vancouver  Island,  a  three-hundred-mile  bar- 
rier against  the  long  roll  of  the  Pacific.  He  thought 
of  England,  with  its  scant  area  and  its  forty  million 
souls.  He  smiled.  An  empire  opened  within  range  of 
his  vision.  He  had  had  to  go  to  Europe  to  appreciate 
his  own  country.  Old,  old  peoples  over  there.  Out- 
worn, bewildered  aristocracies  and  vast  populations 
troubled  with  the  specter  of  want,  swarming  like  rab- 
bits, pressing  always  close  upon  the  means  of  subsist- 
ence. No  room;  no  chance.  Bom  in  social  stratas 
solidified  by  centuries.  No  wonder  Europe  was  full  of 
race  and  class  hatred,  of  war  and  pestilence.  Snap 
judgment,' — but  Jack  MacRae  had  seen  the  peasants 


i62  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

of  France  and  Belgium,  the  driven  workmen  of  indus- 
trial France  and  England.  He  had  seen  also  something 
of  the  forces  which  controlled  them,  caught  glimpses 
of  the  iron  hand  in  the  velvet  glove,  a  hand  that  was 
not  so  sure  and  steady  as  in  days  gone  by. 

Here  a  man  still  had  a  chance.  He  could  not  pick 
golden  apples  off  the  fir  trees.  He  must  use  his  brains 
as  well  as  his  hands.  A  reasonable  measure  of  security 
was  within  a  man's  grasp  if  he  tried  for  it.  To  pile  up 
a  fortune  might  be  a  heavy  task.  But  getting  a  living 
was  no  insoluble  problem.  A  man  could  accomplish 
either  without  selling  his  soul  or  cutting  throats  or 
making  serfs  of  his  fellow  men.  There  was  room  to 
move  and  breathe,  —  and  some  to  spare. 

Perhaps  Jack  MacRae,  in  view  of  his  feelings,  his 
cherished  projects,  was  a  trifle  inconsistent  in  the  judg- 
ments he  passed,  sitting  there  on  his  log  in  the  winter 
sunshine.  But  the  wholly  consistent  must  die  young. 
Their  works  do  not  appear  in  this  day  and  hour.  The 
normal  man  adjusts  himself  to,  and  his  actions  are 
guided  by,  moods  and  circumstances  which  are  seldom 
orderly  and  logical  in  their  sequence. 

MacRae  cherished  as  profound  an  animosity  toward 
Horace  Gower  as  any  Russian  ever  felt  for  bureaucratic 
tyranny.  He  could  smart  under  injustice  and  plan 
reprisal.  He  could  appreciate  his  environment,  his 
opportunities,  be  glad  that  his  lines  were  cast  amid 
rugged  beauty.  But  he  did  not  on  that  account  feel 
tolerant  toward  those  whom  he  conceived  to  be  his 
enemies.  He  was  not,  however,  thinking  concretely  of 
his  personal  affairs  or  tendencies  that  bright  morning. 
He  was  merely  sitting  more  or  less  quiescent  on  his  log, 
nursing  vagrant  impressions,  letting  the  sun  bathe  him. 

He  was  not  even  conscious  of  trespassing  on  Horace 


AN  INTERLUDE  163 

Gower's  land.  When  he  thought  of  it,  of  course  he 
realized  that  this  was  legally  so.  But  the  legal  fact 
had  no  reality  for  MacRae.  Between  the  Cove  and 
Point  Old,  for  a  mile  back  into  the  dusky  woods,  he 
felt  free  to  come  and  go  as  he  chose.  He  had  always 
believed  and  understood  and  felt  that  area  to  be  his, 
and  he  still  held  to  that  old  impression.  There  was  not 
a  foot  of  that  six  hundred  acres  that  he  had  not  ex- 
plored alone,  with  his  father,  with  Dolly  Ferrara,  season 
after  season.  He  had  gone  barefoot  over  the  rocks, 
dug  clams  on  the  beaches,  fished  trout  in  the  little 
streams,  hunted  deer  and  grouse  in  the  thickets,  as  far 
back  as  he  could  remember.  He  had  loved  the  cliffs  and 
the  sea,  the  woods  around  the  Cove  with  an  affection 
bred  in  use  and  occupancy,  confirmed  by  the  sense  of 
inviolate  possession.  Old  things  are  dear,  if  a  man  has 
once  loved  them.  They  remain  so.  The  aura  of  beloved 
familiarity  clings  to  them  long  after  they  have  passed 
into  alien  hands.  When  MacRae  thought  of  this  and 
turned  his  eyes  upon  this  noble  sweep  of  land  and  forest 
which  his  father  had  claimed  for  his  own  from  the 
wilderness,  it  was  as  if  some  one  had  deprived  him  of 
an  eye  or  an  arm  by  trickery  and  unfair  advantage. 

He  was  not  glooming  over  such  things  this  rare 
morning  which  had  come  like  a  benediction  after  ten 
days  of  rain  and  wind.  He  was  sitting  on  his  log  bare- 
headed, filled  with  a  passive  content  rare  in  his  recent 
experience. 

From  this  perch,  in  the  idle  wandering  of  his  gaze, 
his  eyes  at  length  rested  upon  Peter  Ferrara's  house. 
He  saw  a  man  and  a  woman  come  out  of  the  front  door 
and  stand  for  a  minute  or  two  on  the  steps.  He  could 
not  recognize  the  man  at  the  distance,  but  he  could 
guess.    The  man  presently  walked  away  around  the  end 


i64  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

of  the  Cove,  MacRae  perceived  that  his  guess  was  cor- 
rect, for  Norman  Gower  came  out  on  the  brow  of  the 
cliff  that  bordered  the  south  side  of  the  Cove.  He  ap- 
peared a  short  distance  away,  walking  slowly,  his  eyes 
on  the  Cove  and  Peter  Ferrara's  house.  He  did  not 
see  MacRae  till  he  was  quite  close  and  glanced  that  way. 

"Hello,  MacRae,"  he  said. 

"  How  d'  do,"  Jack  answered.  There  was  no  cordi- 
ality in  his  tone.  If  he  had  any  desire  at  that  moment 
it  was  not  for  speech  with  Norman  Gower,  but  rather  a 
desire  that  Gower  should  walk  on. 

But  the  other  man  sat  down  on  MacRae's  log. 

**  Not  much  like  over  the  pond,  this,"  he  remarked. 

*^Not  much,"  MacRae  agreed  indifferently. 

Young  Gower  took  a  cigarette  case  out  of  his  pocket, 
extended  it  to  MacRae,  who  declined  with  a  brief  shake 
of  his  head.  Norman  lighted  a  cigarette.  He  was 
short  and  stoutly  biiilt,  a  compact,  muscular  man  some- 
what older  than  MacRae.  He  had  very  fair  hair  and 
blue  eyes,  and  the  rose-leaf  skin  of  his  mother  had  in 
him  taken  on  a  masculine  floridity.  But  he  had  the 
Gower  mouth  and  determined  chin.  So  had  Betty, 
MacRae  was  reminded,  looking  at  her  brother. 

"  You  sank  your  harpoon  pretty  deep  into  Folly 
Bay  this  season,"  Norman  said  abruptly.  "Did  you 
do  pretty  well  yourself?" 

"Pretty  well,"  MacRae  drawled.  "Did  it  worry 
you?" 

"Me?  Hardly,"  young  Gower  smiled.  "It  did  not 
cost  me  anything  to  operate  Folly  Bay  at  a  loss  while 
I  was  in  charge;  I  had  neither  money  nor  reputation 
to  lose.  You  may  have  worried  the  governor.  I  dare 
say  you  did.  He  never  did  take  kindly  to  anything  or 
any    one    that  interfered   with   his   projects.      But   I 


AN  INTERLUDE  165 

haven't  heard  him  commit  himself.  He  doesn't  con- 
fide in  me,  anyway,  nor  esteem  me  very  highly  in  any 
capacity.  I  wonder  if  your  father  ever  felt  that  way 
about  you  ?  " 

"No,"  MacRae  said  impulsively.    "  By  God,  no ! " 

"Lucky.  And  you  came  home  with  a  record  behind 
you.  Nothing  to  handicap  you.  You  jumped  into  the 
fray  to  do  something  for  yourself  and  made  good  right 
off  the  bat.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  luck,"  Norman 
said  soberly.  "A  man  can  do  his  best  —  and  fail.  I 
have,  so  far.  I  was  expected  to  come  home  a  credit  to 
the  family,  a  hero,  dangling  medals  on  my  manly  chest. 
Instead,  I've  lost  caste  with  my  own  crowd.  Girls  and 
fellows  I  used  to  know  sneer  at  me  behind  my  back. 
They  put  their  tongues  in  their  cheek  and  say  I  was  a 
crafty  slacker.     I  suppose  you've  heard  the  talk?" 

"No,"  MacRae  answered  shortly;  he  had  forgotten 
Nelly  Abbott's  questioning  almost  the  first  time  he  met 
her.    "  I  don't  run  much  with  your  crowd,  anyway." 

"Well,  they  can  think  what  they  damn  please," 
young  Gower  grumbled.  "  It 's  quite  true  that  I  was 
never  any  closer  to  the  front  than  the  Dover  cliffs. 
Perhaps  at  home  here  in  the  beginning  they  handed 
me  a  captain's  commission  on  the  family  pull.  But  I 
tried  to  deliver  the  goods.  These  people  think  I  dodged 
the  trenches.  They  don't  know  my  eyesight  spoiled  my 
chances  of  going  into  action.  I  could  n't  get  to  France. 
So  I  did  my  bit  where  headquarters  told  me  I  could  do 
it  or  go  home.  And  all  I  have  got  out  of  it  is  the 
veiled  contempt  of  nearly  everybody  I  know,  my  father 
included,  for  not  killing  Germans  with  my  own  hands." 

MacRae  kept  still.  It  was  a  curious  statement. 
Young  Gower  twisted  and  ground  his  boot  heel  into  the 
soft  earth. 


i66  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

"Being  a  rich  man's  son  has  proved  a  considerable 
handicap  in  my  case,"  he  continued  at  last.  "  I  was 
petted  and  coddled  all  my  life.  Then  the  war  came 
along.  Everybody  expected  a  lot  of  me.  And  I  am  as 
good  as  excommunicated  for  not  coming  up  to  expecta- 
tions. Beautiful  irony.  If  my  eyes  had  been  normal, 
I  should  be  another  of  Vancouver's  heroes,  —  alive  or 
dead.  The  spirit  doesn't  seem  to  count.  The  only 
thing  that  matters,  evidently,  is  that  I  stayed  on  the 
safe  side  of  the  Channel.  They  take  it  for  granted  that 
I  did  so  because  I  valued  my  own  skin  above  everything. 
Idiots." 

"You  can  easily  explain,"  MacRae  suggested. 

"  I  won't.  I  'd  see  them  all  in  Hades  first,"  Norman 
growled.  "  I  '11  admit  it  stings  me  to  have  people  think 
so  and  rub  it  in,  in  their  polite  way.  But  I  'm  getting 
more  or  less  indifferent.  There  are  plenty  of  real 
people  in  England  who  know  I  did  the  only  work  I  could 
do  and  did  it  well.  Do  you  imagine  I  fancied  sitting 
on  the  side  lines  when  all  the  fellows  I  knew  were  play- 
ing a  tough  game.''  But  I  can't  go  about  telling  that  to 
people  at  home.  I'll  be  damned  if  I  will.  A  man  has 
to  learn  to  stand  the  gaff  sometime,  and  the  last  year 
or  so  seems  to  be  my  period  of  schooling." 

"  Why  tell  all  this  to  me  ?  "  MacRae  asked  quietly. 

Norman  rose  from  the  log.  He  chucked  the  butt  of 
his  cigarette  away.  He  looked  directly,  rather  search- 
ingly,  at  MacRae. 

"  Really,  I  don't  know,"  he  said  in  a  flat,  expression- 
less tone.     Then  he  walked  on. 

MacRae  watched  him  pass  out  of  sight  among  the 
thickets.  Young  Gower  had  succeeded  in  dispelling  the 
passive  contentment  of  basking  in  the  sun.  He  had 
managed  to  start  buzzing  trains  of  not  too  agreeable 


AN  INTERLUDE  167 

reflection.  MacRae  got  to  his  feet  before  long  and 
tramped  back  around  the  Cove's  head.  He  had  known, 
of  course,  that  the  Gowers  still  made  more  or  less  use 
of  their  summer  cottage.  But  he  had  not  come  in  per- 
sonal contact  with  any  of  them  since  the  night  Betty 
had  given  him  that  new,  disturbing  angle  from  which  to 
view  her.  He  had  avoided  her  purposely.  Now  he  was 
afflicted  with  a  sudden  restlessness,  a  desire  for  other 
voices  and  faces  besides  his  own,  and  so,  as  he  was  in 
the  habit  of  doing  when  such  a  mood  seized  him,  he  went 
on  to  Peter  Ferrara's  house. 

He  walked  in  through  a  wide-open  door,  unannounced 
by  aught  save  his  footsteps,  as  he  was  accustomed  to  do, 
and  he  found  Dolly  Ferrara  and  Betty  Gower  laughing 
and  chatting  familiarly  in  the  kitchen  over  teacups  and 
little  cakes. 

"  Oh,  I  beg  pardon,"  said  he.  "  I  did  n't  know  you 
were  entertaining." 

**  I  don't  entertain,  and  you  know  it,"  Dolly  laughed. 
"  Come  down  from  that  lofty  altitude  and  I  'U  give  you 
a  cup  of  tea." 

'*  Mr.  MacRae,  being  an  aviator  of  some  note,"  Betty 
put  in,  "probably  finds  himself  at  home  in  the  high 
altitudes." 

"Do  I  seem  to  be  up  in  the  air.?"  MacRae  inquired 
dryly.  "  I  shall  try  to  come  down  behind  my  own  lines, 
and  not  in  enemy  territory." 

"  You  might  have  to  make  a  forced  landing,"  Dolly, 
remarked. 

Her  great  dusky  eyes  rested  upon  liim  with  a  singular 
quality  of  speculation.  MacRae  wondered  if  those  two 
had  been  talking  about  him,  and  why. 

There  was,  an  astonishing  contrast  between  these  two 
girls,  MacRae  thought,  his  mind  and  his  eyes  busy  upon 


i68  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

them  while  his  tongue  uttered  idle  words  and  his  hands 
coped  with  a  teacup  and  cakes.  Thej  were  the  product 
of  totally  dissimilar  environments.  They  were  the 
physical  antithesis  of  each  other,  —  in  all  but  the 
pecuhar  feline  grace  of  young  females  who  are  healthily, 
exuberantly  alive.  Yet  MacRae  had  a  feeling  that  they 
were  sisters  under  their  skins,  wonderfully  alike  in  their 
primary  emotions.  Why,  then,  he  wondered,  should  one 
be  capable  of  moving  him  to  violent  emotional  reactions 
(he  had  got  that  far  in  his  self-admissions  concerning 
Betty  Gower),  and  the  other  move  him  only  to  a 
friendly  concern  and  latterly  a  certain  pity? 

Certainly  either  one  would  quite  justify  a  man  in 
seeking  her  for  his  mate,  if  he  found  his  natural  in- 
stincts urging  him  along  ways  which  MacRae  was  begin- 
ning to  perceive  no  normal  man  could  escape  traveling. 
And  if  he  had  to  tread  that  road,  why  should  it  not 
have  been  his  desire  to  tread  it  with  Dolly  Ferrara? 
That  would  have  been  so  much  simpler.  With  uncon- 
scious egotism  he  put  aside  Norman  Gower  as  a  factor. 
If  he  had  to  develop  an  unaccountable  craving  for  some 
particular  woman,  why  couldn't  it  have  centered  upon 
a  woman  he  knew  as  well  as  he  knew  Dolly,  whose  likes 
and  dislikes,  little  tricks  of  speech  and  manner,  habits 
of  thought,  all  the  inconsiderable  traits  that  go  to  make 
up  what  we  call  personality,  were  pleasantly  familiar? 

Strange  thoughts  over  a  teacup,  MacRae  decided. 
It  seemed  even  more  strange  that  he  should  be  con- 
sidering such  intimately  personal  things  in  the  very  act 
of  carrying  on  an  impersonal  triangular  conversation; 
as  if  there  were  two  of  him  present,  one  being  occupied 
in  the  approved  teacup  manner  while  the  other  sat  by 
speculating  with  a  touch  of  moroseness  upon  distress- 
ingly important  potentialities.     This  duality  persisted 


AN  INTERLUDE  169 

in  functioning  even  when  Betty  looked  at  her  watch  and 
said,  "  I  must  go," 

He  walked  with  her  around  to  the  head  of  the  Cove. 
He  had  not  wanted  to  do  that,  —  and  still  he  did.  He 
found  himself  filled  with  an  intense  and  resentful  curi- 
osity about  this  calm,  self-possessed  young  woman.  He 
wondered  if  she  really  had  any  power  to  hurt  him,  if 
there  resided  in  her  any  more  potent  charm  than  other 
women  possessed,  or  if  it  were  a  mere  sentimental  be- 
fogging of  his  mind  due  to  the  physical  propinquity  of 
her  at  a  time  when  he  was  weak  and  bruised  and  helpless. 
He  could  feel  the  soft  warmth  of  her  hands  yet,  and 
without  even  closing  his  eyes  he  could  see  her  reddish- 
brown  hair  against  the  white  of  his  bed  covers  and  the 
tired  droop  of  her  body  as  she  slept  that  night. 

Curiously  enough,  before  they  were  well  clear  of  the 
Ferrara  house  they  had  crossed  swords.  Courteously, 
to  be  sure.  !MacRae  could  not  afterward  recall  clearly 
how  it  began,  —  something  about  the  war  and  the  after- 
effect of  the  war.  British  Columbia  nowise  escaped  the 
muddle  into  which  the  close  of  the  war  and  the  wrangle 
of  the  peacemakers  had  plunged  both  industry  and 
politics.  There  had  been  a  recent  labor  disturbance  in 
Vancouver  in  which  demobilized  soldiers  had  played  a 
part. 

"  You  can't  blame  these  men  much.  They  're  be- 
wildered at  some  of  the  things  they  get  up  against,  and 
exasperated  by  others.  A  lot  of  them  have  found  the 
going  harder  at  home  than  it  was  in  France.  A  lot  of 
promises  and  preachments  don't  fit  in  with  performance 
since  the  guns  have  stopped  talking.  I  suppose  that 
doesn't  seem  reasonable  to  people  like  you,"  MacRae 
found  himself  saying.  "You  don't  have  to  gouge  and 
claw  a  living  out  of  the  world.     Or  at  least,  if  there  is 


170  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

any  gouging  and  clawing  to  be  done,  you  are  not  per- 
sonally involved  in  it.     You  get  it  done  by  proxy." 

Betty  flushed  slightly. 

"  Do  you  always  go  about  with  a  chip  on  your 
shoulder.?^  "  she  asked.  "  I  should  think  you  did  enough 
fighting  in  France." 

"  I  learned  to  fight  there,"  he  said.  "  I  was  a  happy- 
go-lucky  kid  before  that.  Rich  and  poor  looked  alike 
to  me.  I  did  n't  covet  anything  that  anybody  had,  and 
I  didn't  dream  that  any  one  could  possibly  wish  to 
take  away  from  me  anything  that  I  happened  to  have. 
I  thought  the  world  was  a  kind  and  pleasant  place  for 
everybody.  But  things  look  a  little  different  to  me 
now.  They  sent  us  fellows  to  France  to  fight  Huns. 
But  there  are  a  few  at  home,  I  find.  Why  shouldn't 
I  fight  them  whenever  I  see  a  chance.^  " 

"  But  I  'm  not  a  Hun,"  Betty  said  with  a  smile. 

"  I  'm  not  so  sure  about  that." 

The  words  leaped  out  before  he  was  quite  aware  of 
what  they  might  imply.  They  had  come  to  a  point  on 
the  path  directly  in  front  of  his  house.  Betty  stopped. 
Her  gray  eyes  flashed  angrily.  Storm  signals  blazed  in 
her  cheeks,  bright  above  the  delicate  white  of  her  neck. 

"Jack  MacRae,"  she  burst  out  hotly,  "you  are 
a  —  a — a  first-class  idiot!" 

Then  she  turned  her  back  on  him  and  went  off  up  the 
path  with  a  quick,  springy  step  that  somehow  suggested 
extreme  haste. 

MacRae  stood  looking  after  her  fully  a  minute. 
Then  he  climbed  the  steps,  went  into  the  front  room  and 
sat  himself  down  in  a  deep,  cushioned  chair.  He 
glowered  into  the  fireplace  with  a  look  as  black  as  the 
charred  remains  of  his  morning  fire.  He  uttered  one 
brief  word  after  a  long  period  of  fixed  staring. 


AN  INTERLUDE  171 

"  Damn ! "  he  said. 

It  seemed  a  very  inadequate  manner  of  expressing  liis 
feelings,  but  it  was  the  best  he  could  do  at  the  moment. 

He  sat  there  until  the  chill  discomfort  of  the  room 
stirred  him  out  of  his  abstraction.  Then  he  built  a 
fire  and  took  up  a  book  to  read.  But  the  book  presently 
lay  unheeded  on  his  knees.  He  passed  the  rest  of  the 
short  forenoon  sprawled  in  that  big  chair  before  the 
fireplace,  struggling  with  chaotic  mental  processes. 

It  made  him  unhappy,  but  he  could  not  help  it.  A 
tremendous  assortment  of  mental  images  presented 
themselves  for  inspection,  flickering  up  unbidden  out  of 
his  brain-stufl', — 'old  visions  and  new,  familiar  things 
and  vague,  troublesome  possibilities,  all  strangely  jum- 
bled together.  His  mind  hopped  from  Squitty  Cove  to 
Salisbury  Plain,  to  the  valley  of  the  Rhone,  to  Paris, 
London,  Vancouver,  turned  up  all  sorts  of  recollections, 
cameralike  flashes  of  things  that  had  happened  to  him, 
things  he  had  seen  in  curious  places,  bits  of  his  life  in 
that  somehow  distant  period  when  he  was  a  youngster 
chumming  about  with  his  father.  And  always  he  came 
back  to  the  Gowers,  —  father,  son  and  daughter,  and 
the  delicate  elderly  woman  with  the  faded  rose-leaf  face 
whom  he  had  seen  only  once.  Whole  passages  of  Donald 
MacRae's  written  life  story  took  form  in  living  words. 
He  could  not  disentangle  himself  from  these  Gowers. 

And  he  hated  them ! 

Dark  came  down  at  last.  MacRae  went  out  on  the 
porch.  The  few  scattered  clouds  had  vanished  com- 
pletely. A  starry  sky  glittered  above  horizons  edged 
by  mountain  ranges,  serrated  outlines  astonishingly 
distinct.  The  sea  spread  duskily  mysterious  from 
duskier  shores.  It  was  very  still,  to  MacRae  suddenly 
very  lonely,  empty,  depressing. 


172  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

The  knowledge  that  just  across  a  narrow  neck  of 
land  the  Gowers,  father,  daughter  and  son,  went  care- 
lessly, securely  about  their  own  affairs,  made  him  in- 
finitely more  lonelyt,  irritated  him,  stirred  up  a  burning 
resentment  against  the  lot  of  them.  He  lumped  them 
all  together,  despite  a  curious  tendency  on  the  part  of 
Betty's  image  to  separate  itself  from  the  others.  He 
hated  them,  the  whole  damned,  profiteering,  arrogant, 
butterfly  lot.  He  nursed  an  unholy  satisfaction  in 
having  made  some  inroad  upon  their  comfortable 
security,  in  having  "  sunk  his  harpoon  "  into  their  only 
vulnerable  spot. 

But  that  satisfaction  did  not  give  him  relief  or  con- 
tent as  he  stood  looking  out  into  the  clear  frost-tinged 
night.  Squitty  had  all  at  once  become  a  ghostly  place, 
haunted  with  sadness.  Old  Donald  MacRae  was  living 
over  again  in  him,  he  had  a  feeling,  reliving  those  last 
few  cheerless,  hopeless  years  which,  MacRae  told  him- 
self savagely,  Horace  Gower  had  deliberately  made 
more  cheerless  and  hopeless. 

And  he  was  in  a  fair  way  to  love  that  man's  flesh  and 
blood?  MacRae  sneered  at  himself  in  the  dark.  Never 
to  the  point  of  staying  his  hand,  of  foregoing  his  pur- 
pose, of  failing  to  strike  a  blow  as  chance  offered.  Not 
so  long  as  he  was  his  father's  son. 

"  Hang  it,  I  'm  getting  morbid,"  MacRae  muttered 
at  last.  "I've  been  sticking  around  here  too  close. 
I  '11  pack  a  bag  to-morrow  and  go  to  town  for  a  while." 

He  closed  the  door  on  the  crisp,  empty  night,  and 
set  about  getting  himself  something  to  eat. 


\ 


CHAPTER   XIV 
The  Swing  op  the  Pendulum 

MacRae  did  himself  rather  well,  as  the  English  say, 
when  he  reached  Vancouver.  This  was  a  holiday,  and 
he  was  disposed  to  make  the  most  of  it.  He  put  up  at 
the  Granada.  He  made  a  few  calls  and  presently  found 
himself  automatically  relaunched  upon  Vancouver's 
social  waters.  There  were  a  few  maids  and  more  than 
one  matron  who  recalled  pleasantly  this  straight  up- 
standing youngster  with  the  cool  gray  eyes  who  had 
come  briefly  into  their  ken  the  winter  before.  There 
were  a  few  fellows  he  had  kno^vn  in  squadron  quarters 
overseas,  home  for  good  now  that  demobilization  was 
fairly  complete.  MacRae  danced  well.  He  had  the 
faculty  of  making  himself  agreeable  without  effort.  He 
found  it  pleasant  to  fall  into  the  way  of  these  careless, 
well-dressed  folk  whose  greatest  labor  seemed  to  be  in 
amusing  themselves,  to  keep  life  from  seeming  "  slow." 
Buttressed  by  revenues  derived  from  substantial  sources, 
mines,  timber,  coastal  fisheries,  land,  established  indus- 
tries, these  sons  and  daughters  of  the  pioneers,  many 
but  one  degree  removed  from  pioneering  uncouthness, 
were  patterning  their  lives  upon  the  plan  of  equivalent 
classes  in  older  regions.  If  it  takes  six  generations  in 
Europe  to  make  a  gentleman,  western  America  quite 
casually  dispenses  with  five,  and  the  resulting  product 
seldom  suffers  by  comparison. 

As  the  well-to-do  in  Europe  flung  themselves  into 


174  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

revelry  with  the  signing  of  the  armistice,  so  did  they 
here.  Four  years  of  war  had  corked  the  bottle  of 
gayety.  The  young  men  were  all  overseas.  Life  was  a 
little  too  cloudy  during  that  period  to  be  gay.  Shadows 
hung  over  too  many  homes.  But  that  was  past.  They 
had  pulled  the  cork  and  thrown  it  away,  one  would 
think.  Pleasure  was  king,  to  be  served  with  light 
abandon. 

It  was  a  fairly  vigorous  place,  MacRae  discovered. 
He  liked  it,  gave  himself  up  to  it  gladly,  —  for  a  while. 
It  involved  no  mental  effort.  These  people  seldom  spoke 
of  money,  or  of  work,  or  politics,  the  high  cost  of  living, 
international  affairs.  If  they  did  it  was  jocularly, 
sketchily,  as  matters  of  no  importance.  Their  talk  ran 
upon  dances,  clothes,  motoring,  sports  indoors  and 
afield,  on  food,  —  and  sometimes  genially  on  drink, 
since  the  dry  wave  had  not  yet  drained  their  cellars. 

MacRae  floated  with  this  tide.  But  he  was  not  wholly 
carried  away  with  it.  He  began  to  view  it  impersonally, 
to  wonder  if  it  were  the  real  thing,  if  this  was  what 
inspired  men  to  plot  and  scheme  and  struggle  labori- 
ously for  money,  or  if  it  were  just  the  froth  on  the 
surface  of  realities  which  he  could  not  quite  grasp.  He 
couldn't  say.  There  was  a  dash  and  glitter  about  it 
that  charmed  him.  He  could  warm  and  thrill  to  the 
beauty  of  a  Granada  ballroom,  music  that  seduced  a 
man's  feet,  beauty  of  silk  and  satin,  of  face  and  figure, 
of  bright  eyes  and  gleaming  jewels,  a  blending  of  all 
the  primary  c'blors  and  every  shade  between,  flashing 
over  a  polished  floor  under  high,  carved  ceilings. 

He  had  surrendered  Nelly  Abbott  to  a  claimant  and 
stood  watching  the  swirl  and  glide  of  the  dancers  in  the 
Granada  one  night.  His  eyes  were  on  the  brilliance  a 
little  below  the  raised  area  at  one  end  of  the  floor,  and 


THE  SWING  OF  THE  PENDULUM       175 

so  was  his  mind,  inquiringly,  with  the  curious  concen- 
tration of  wliich  his  mind  was  capable.  Presently  he 
became  aware  of  some  one  speaking  to  liim,  tugging  at 
his  elbow. 

"  Oh,  come  out  of  it,'*  a  voice  said  derisively. 

He  looked  around  at  Stubby  Abbott. 

**  Regular  trance.     I  spoke  to  you  twice.     In  love  ?  " 

"Uh-uh.     Just  thinking,"  MacRae  laughed. 

*'Deep  thinking,  I'll  say.  Want  to  go  down  to  the 
billiard  room  and  smoke.?  '* 

They  descended  to  a  subterranean  chamber  where, 
in  a  pit  lighted  by  low-hung  shaded  globes,  men  in  shirt 
sleeves  clicked  the  red  and  white  balls  on  a  score 
of  tables.  Rows  of  leather-upholstered  chairs  gave 
comfort  to  spectators.  They  commandeered  seats  and 
lighted  cigarettes.  "Look,"  Stubby  said.  "There's 
Norman  Gower." 

Young  Gower  sat  across  a  comer  from  them.  He 
was  in  evening  clothes.  He  slumped  in  his  chair.  His 
hands  were  limp  along  the  chair  arms.  He  was  not 
watching  the  billiard  players.  He  was  staring  straight 
across  the  room  with  the  sightless  look  of  one  whose 
mind  is  far  away. 

"  Another  deep  thinker,"  Stubby  drawled.  "  Rather 
rough  going  for  Norman  these  days." 

"How?"  MacRae  asked. 

"Funked  it  over  across,"  Stubby  replied.  "So  they 
say.  Careful  to  stay  on  the  right  side  of  the  Channel. 
Paying  the  penalty  now.  Girls  rather  rub  it  in.  Fel- 
lows not  too  —  well,  cordial.  Pretty  rotten  for  Nor- 
man." 

"Think  he  slacked  deliberately?"  MacRae  inquired. 

"That's  the  story.  Lord,  I  don't  know,"  Stubby 
answered.     "  He  stuck  in  England  four  years.     Every- 


176  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

body  else  that  was  fit  went  up  the  line.  That 's*  all  I 
know.    By  their  deeds  ye  shall  judge  them  —  eh?  " 

"  Perhaps.    What  does  he  say  about  that  himself?  " 

"  Nothing,  so  far  as  I  know.  Keeps  strictly  mum  on 
the  war  subject,"  Stubby  said. 

Young  Gower  did  not  alter  his  position  during  the 
few  minutes  they  sat  there.  He  sat  staring  straight 
ahead  of  him,  unseeingly.  MacRae  suddenly  felt  sorry 
for  him.  If  he  had  told  the  truth  he  was  suffering 
a  peculiarly  distressing  form  of  injustice,  of  mis- 
conception. MacRae  recalled  the  passionate  undertone 
in  Gower's  voice  when  he  said,  "  I  did  the  only  thing  I 
could  do  in  the  way  I  was  told  to  do  it."  Yes,  he  was 
sorry  for  Norman.  The  poor  devil  was  not  getting  a 
square  deal. 

But  MacRae^s  pity  was  swiftly  blotted  out.  He  had 
a  sudden  uncomfortable  vision  of  old  Donald  MacRae 
rowing  around  Poor  Man's  Rock,  back  and  forth  in  sun 
and  rain,  in  frosty  dawns  and  stormy  twilights,  coming 
home  to  a  lonely  house,  dying  at  last  a  lonely  death,  the 
sordid  culmination  of  an  embittered  life. 

Let  him  sweat,  —  the  whole  Gower  tribe.  MacRae 
was  the  ancient  Roman,  for  the  moment,  wishing  all  his 
enemies  had  but  a  single  head  that  he  might  draw  his 
sword  and  strike  it  off.  Something  in  him  hardened 
against  that  first  generous  impulse  to  repeat  to  Stubby 
Abbott  what  Norman  had  told  him  on  the  cliff  at 
Squitty.  Let  the  beggar  make  his  own  defense.  Yet 
that  stubborn  silence,  the  proud  refusal  to  make  words 
take  the  place  of  valiant  deeds  expected,  wrung  a  gleam 
of  reluctant  admiration  from  MacRae.  He  would  have 
done  just  that  himself. 

"  Let 's  get  back,"  Stubby  suggested.  "  I  've  got  the 
next  dance  with  Betty  Gower.    I  don't  want  to  miss  it." 


THE  SWING  OF  THE  PENDULUM       177 

"Is  she  here  to-night?    I  haven't  noticed  her." 

"  Eyesight  affected?  "  Stubby  bantered.  " Sure  she 's 
here.     Looking  like  a  dream." 

MacRae  felt  a  pang  of  envy.  There  was  nothing  to 
hold  Stubby  back,  —  no  old  scores,  no  deep,  abiding 
resentment.  MacRae  had  the  conviction  that  Stubby 
would  never  take  anything  like  that  so  seriously  as  he. 
Jack  MacRae,  did.  He  was  aware  that  Stubby  had 
the  curious  dual  code  common  in  the  business  world, — 
one  set  of  inhibitions  and  principles  for  business  and 
another  for  personal  and  social  uses.  A  man  might  be 
Stubby's  opponent  in  the  market  and  his  friend  when 
they  met  on  a  common  social  ground.  MacRae  could 
never  be  quite  like  that.  Stubby  could  fight  Horace 
Gower,  for  instance,  tooth  and  toenail,  for  an  advantage 
in  the  salmon  trade,  and  stretch  his  legs  under  Gower's 
dining  table  with  no  sense  of  incongruity,  no  matter 
what  shifts  the  competitive  struggle  had  taken  or  what 
weapons  either  had  used.  That  was  business;  and  a 
man  left  his  business  at  the  office.  A  curious  thing, 
MacRae  thought.  A  phenomenon  in  ethics  which  he 
found  hard  to  understand,  harder  still  to  endorse. 

He  stood  watching  Stubby,  knowing  that  Stubby 
would  go  straight  to  Betty  Gower.  Presently  he  saw 
her,  marked  the  cut  and  color  of  her  gown,  watched 
them  swing  into  the  gyrating  wave  of  couples  that  took 
the  floor  when  the  orchestra  began.  Indeed,  MacRae 
stood  watching  them  until  he  recalled  with  a  start  that 
he  had  this  dance  with  Etta  Robbin-Steele,  who  would, 
in  her  own  much-used  phrase,  be  "  simply  furious  "  at 
anything  that  might  be  construed  as  neglect;  only 
Etta's  fury  would  consist  of  showing  her  white,  even 
teeth  in  a  pert  smile  with  a  challenging  twinkle  in  her 
very  black  eyes. 


178  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

He  went  to  Betty  as  soon  as  he  found  opportunity. 
He  did  not  quite  know  why.  He  did  not  stop  to  ask 
himself  why.  It  was  a  purely  instinctive  propulsion. 
He  followed  his  impulse  as  the  needle  swings  to  the 
pole;  as  an  object  released  from  the  hand  at  a  great 
height  obeys  the  force  of  gravity;  as  water  flows 
downhill. 

He  took  her  programme. 

"I  don't  see  any  vacancies,"  he  said.  "Shall  I 
create  one  ?  " 

He  drew  his  pencil  through  Stubby  Abbott's  name. 
Stubby's  signature  was  rather  liberally  inscribed  there, 
he  thought.     Betty  looked  at  him  a  trifle  uncertainly. 

"Aren't  you  a  trifle  —  sweeping?"  she  inquired. 

"  Perhaps.    Stubby  won't  mind.    Do  you?  "  he  asked. 

"I  seem  to  be  defenseless."  Betty  shrugged  her 
shoulders.     "What  shall  we  quarrel  about  this  time?" 

"  Anything  you  like,"  he  made  reckless  answer. 

"  Very  well,  then,"  she  said  as  they  got  up  to  dance. 
"  Suppose  we  begin  by  finding  out  what  there  is  to 
quarrel  over.  Are  you  aware  that  practically  every 
time  we  meet  we  nearly  come  to  blows?  What  is  there 
about  me  that  irritates  you  so  easily?" 

"Your  inaccessibility." 

MacRae  spoke  without  weighing  his  words.  Yet  that 
was  the  truth,  although  he  knew  that  such  a  frank  truth 
was  neither  good  form  nor  policy.  He  was  sorry  before 
the  words  were  out  of  his  mouth.  Betty  could  not 
possibly  understand  what  he  meant.  He  was  not  sure 
he  wanted  her  to  understand.  MacRae  felt  himself 
riding  to  a  fall.  As  had  happened  briefly  the  night  of 
the  Blackbird's  wrecking,  he  experienced  that  feeling  of 
dumb  protest  against  the  shaping  of  events  in  which  he 
moved  helpless.     This  bit  of  flesh  and  blood  swaying  in 


THE  SWING  OF  THE  PENDULUM       179 

his  arms  in  effortless  rhythm  to  sensuous  music  was 
something  he  had  to  reckon  with  powerfully,  whether 
he  liked  or  not.  MacRae  was  beginning  dimly  to  see 
that.     When  he  was  with  her  — 

"  But  I  'm  not  inaccessible." 

She  dropped  her  voice  to  a  cooing  whisper.  Her  eyes 
glowed  as  they  met  his  with  steadfast  concern.  There 
was  a  smile  and  a  question  in  them. 

*'  What  ever  gave  you  that  idea  ?  " 

"  It  is  n't  an  idea ;  it  *s  a  fact." 

The  resentment  against  circumstances  that  troubled 
MacRae  crept  into  his  tone. 

"Oh,  silly!" 

There  was  a  railing  note  of  tenderness  in  Betty's 
voice.  MacRae  felt  his  moorings  slip.  A  heady  reck- 
lessness of  consequences  seized  him.  He  drew  her  a 
little  closer  to  him.  Irresistible  prompting  from  some 
wellspring  of  liis  being  urged  him  on  to  what  his  reason 
would  have  called  sheer  folly,  if  that  reason  had  not 
for  the  time  suffered  eclipse,  which  is  a  weakness  of 
rational  processes  when  they  come  into  conflict  with  a 
genuine  emotion. 

"  Do  you  like  me,  Betty?  " 

Her  eyes  danced.    They  answered  as  well  as  her  lips : 

"Of  course  I  do.  Haven't  I  been  telling  you  so 
plainly  enough.'*  I  've  been  ashamed  of  myself  for  being 
so  transparent  —  on  such  slight  provocation." 

"  How  much.?  "  he  demanded. 

«0h  — well— " 

The  ballroom  was  suddenly  shrouded  in  darkness, 
saved  only  from  a  cavelike  black  by  diffused  street  light 
through  the  upper  windows.  A  blown  fuse.  A  mis- 
pulled  switch.  One  of  those  minor  accidents  common 
to  electric  lighting  systems.     The  orchestra  hesitated. 


i8o  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

went  on.  From  a  momentary  silence  the  dancers  broke 
into  chuckles,  amused  laughter,  a  buzz  of  exclamatory 
conversation.  But  no  one  moved,  lest  they  collide  with 
other  unseen  couples. 

Jack  and  Betty  stood  still.  They  could  not  see. 
But  MacRae  could  feel  the  quick  beat^  of  Betty's  heart, 
the  rise  and  fall  of  her  breast,  a  trembling  in  her 
fingers.  There  was  a  strange  madness  stirring  in  him. 
His  arm  tightened  about  her.  He  felt  that  she  yielded 
easily,  as  if  gladly.  Their  mouths  sought  and  clung  in 
the  first  real  kiss  Jack  MacRae  had  ever  known.  And 
then,  as  they  relaxed  that  impulse-born  embrace,  the 
hghts  flashed  on  again,  blazed  in  a  thousand  globes  in 
great  frosted  clusters  high  against  the  gold-leaf  decora- 
tions of  the  ceiling.  The  dancers  caught  step  again. 
MacRae  and  Betty  circled  the  polished  floor  silently. 
She  floated  in  his  arms  like  thistledown,  her  eyes  like 
twin  stars,  a  deeper  color  in  her  cheeks. 

Then  the  music  ceased,  and  they  were  swept  into  a 
chattering  group,  out  of  which  presently  materialized 
another  partner  to  claim  Betty.  So  they  parted  with 
a  smile  and  a  nod. 

But  MacRae  had  no  mind  for  dancing.  He  went  out 
through  the  lobby  and  straight  to  his  room.  He  flung 
off  his  coat  and  sat  down  in  a  chair  by  the  window  and 
blinked  out  into  the  night.  He  had  looked,  it  seemed  to 
him,  into  the  very  gates  of  paradise,  —  and  he  could  not 
go  in. 

It  wasn't  possible.  He  sat  peering  out  over  the 
dusky  roofs  of  the  city,  damning  with  silent  oaths  the 
coil  in  which  he  found  himself  inextricably  involved. 
History  was  repeating  itself.    Like  father,  like  son. 

There  was  a  difference  though.  MacRae,  as  he  grew 
calmer,  marked  that.     Old  Donald  had  lost  his  sweet- 


THE  SWING  OF  THE  PENDULUM       i8i 

heart  by  force  and  trickery.  His  son  must  forego  love 
—  if  it  were  indeed  love — ^of  his  own  volition.  He  had 
no  choice.  He  saw  no  way  of  winning  Betty  Gower 
unless  he  stayed  his  hand  against  her  father.  And  he 
would  not  do  that.  He  could  not.  It  would  be  like 
going  over  to  the  enemy  in  the  heat  of  battle.  Gower 
had  wronged  and  persecuted  his  father.  He  had  beaten 
old  Donald  without  mercy  in  every  phase  of  that  thirty- 
year  period.  He  had  taken  Donald  MacRae's  woman 
from  him  in  the  beginning  and  his  property  in  the  end. 
Jack  ^lacRae  had  every  reason  to  believe  Gower  merely 
sat  back  awaiting  a  favorable  opportunity  to  crush  him. 

So  there  could  be  no  compromising  there;  no  inter- 
marrying and  sentimental  burying  of  the  old  feud. 
Betty  would  tie  his  hands.  He  was  afraid  of  her  power 
to  do  that.  He  did  not  want  to  be  a  Samson  shorn. 
His  ego  revolted  against  love  interfering  with  the  grim 
business  of  everyday  life.  He  bit  his  lip  and  wished  he 
could  wipe  out  that  kiss.  He  cursed  himself  for  a 
slavish  weakness  of  the  flesh.  The  night  was  old  when 
MacRae  lay  down  on  his  bed.  But  he  could  find  no 
ease  for  the  throbbing  ferment  within  him.  He  suffered 
with  a  pain  as  keen  as  if  he  had  been  physically  wounded, 
and  the  very  fact  that  he  could  so  suffer  filled  him  with 
dismay.  He  had  faced  death  man}*^  times  with  less 
emotion  than  he  now  was  facing  life. 

He  had  no  experience  of  love.  Nothing  remotely 
connected  with  women  had  ever  suggested  such  possi- 
bilities of  torment.  He  had  known  first-hand  the  pangs 
of  hunger  and  tliirst,  of  cold  and  weariness,  of  anger 
and  hate,  of  burning  wounds  in  his  flesh.  He  had  al- 
ways been  able  to  grit  his  teeth  and  endure ;  none  of  it 
had  been  able  to  wring  his  soul.  This  did.  He  had 
come  to  manhood,  to  a  full  understanding  of  sex,  at  a 


i82  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

time  when  he  played  the  greatest  game  of  all,  when  all 
his  energies  were  fiercely  centered  upon  preservation  for 
himself  and  certain  destruction  for  other  men.  Per- 
haps because  he  had  come  back  clean,  having  never 
wasted  himself  in  complaisant  liaisons  overseas,  the  in- 
evitable focusing  of  passion  stirred  him  more  pro- 
foundly. He  was  neither  a  varietist  nor  a  male  prude. 
He  was  aware  of  sex.  He  knew  desire.  But  the  flame 
Betty  Gower  had  kindled  in  him  made  him  look  at 
women  out  of  different  eyes.  Desire  had  been  revealed 
to  him  not  as  something  casual,  but  as  an  imperative. 
As  if  nature  had  pulled  the  blinkers  oif  his  eyes  and 
shown  him  his  mate  and  the  aim  and  object  and  law 
and  fiery  urge  of  the  mating  instinct  all  in  one  blinding 
flash. 

He  lay  hot  and  fretful,  cursing  himself  for  a  fool, 
yet  unable  to  find  ease,  wondering  dully  if  Betty  Gower 
must  also  suffer  as  he  should,  or  if  it  were  only  an 
innocent,  piquant  game  that  Betty  played.  Always  in 
the  background  of  his  mind  lurked  a  vision  of  her  father, 
sitting  back  complacently,  fat,  smug,  plump  hands  on 
a  well-rounded  stomach,  chuckling  a  brutal  satisfaction 
over  another  MacRae  beaten. 

MacRae  wakened  from  an  uneasy  sleep  at  ten  o'clock. 
He  rose  and  dressed,  got  his  breakfast,  went  out  oil  the 
streets.  But  Vancouver  had  all  at  once  grown  insuffer- 
able. The  swarming  streets  irritated  him.  He  smol- 
dered inside,  and  he  laid  it  to  the  stir  and  bustle  and 
noise.  He  conceived  himself  to  crave  hushed  places 
and  solitude,  where  he  could  sit  and  think. 

By  mid-afternoon  he  was  far  out  in  the  Gulf  of 
Georgia,  aboard  a  coasting  steamer  sailing  for  island 
ports.  If  it  occurred  to  him  that  he  was  merely  running 
away  from  temptation,  he  did  not  admit  the  fact. 


CHAPTER   XV 

Hearts  are  Not  Always  Trumps 

If  MacRae  reckoned  on  tranquillity  in  his  island  seclu- 
sion he  failed  in  his  reckoning.  A  man  may  fly  from 
temptation,  run  from  a  threatening  danger,  but  he 
cannot  run  away  from  himself.  He  could  not  inhibit 
thought,  reflection,  surges  of  emotion  generated  mys- 
teriously within  himself. 

He  did  his  best.  He  sought  relief  in  action.  There 
were  a  great  many  things  about  his  freehold  upon  which 
he  bestowed  feverish  labor  for  a  time.  He  cleared  away 
all  the  underbrush  to  the  outer  limits  of  his  shrunken 
heritage.  He  built  a  new  enclosing  fence  of  neatly 
split  cedar,  installed  a  pressure  system  of  water  in  the 
old  house. 

"You  goin'  to  get  married?"  old  Peter  inquired 
artlessly  one  day.  "You  got  all  the  symptoms  — 
buzzin'  around  in  your  nest  like  a  bumblebee." 

And  Dolly  smiled  her  slow,  enigmatic  smile. 

Whereupon  MacRae  abandoned  his  industry  and 
went  off  to  Blackfish  Sound  with  Vincent  in  the  Blue- 
bird. The  salmon  run  was  long  over,  but  the  coastal 
waters  still  yielded  a  supply  of  edible  fish.  There  were 
always  a  few  spring  salmon  to  be  taken  here  and  there. 
Ling,  red  and  rock  cod  knew  no  seasons.  Nor  the 
ground  fish,  plaice,  sole,  flounders,  halibut.  Already 
the  advance  guard  of  the  great  run  of  mature  herring 
began  to  show.     For  a  buyer  there  was  no  such  profit 


i84  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

in  running  these  fish  to  market  as  the  profit  of  the 
annual  salmon  run.  Still  it  paid  moderately.  So 
MacRae  had  turned  the  Blitebird  over  to  Vin  to  operate 
for  a  time  on  a  share  basis.  It  gave  Vin,  who  was  am- 
bitious and  apparently  tireless,  a  chance  to  make  a  few 
hundred  dollars  in  an  off  season. 

Wherefore  MacRae,  grown  suddenly  restless  beyond 
all  restraining  upon  his  island,  made  a  trip  or  two 
north  with  Vin  —  a  working  guest  on  his  own  vessel  — 
up  where  the  Gulf  of  Georgia  is  choked  to  narrow 
passages  through  which  the  tidal  currents  race  like 
mountain  streams  pent  in  a  gorge,  up  where  the  sea 
is  a  maze  of  waterways  among  wooded  islands.  They 
anchored  in  strange  bays.  They  fared  once  into  Queen 
Charlotte  Sound  and  rode  the  great  ground  swell  that 
heaves  up  from  the  far  coast  of  Japan  to  burst  against 
the  rocky  outpost  of  Cape  Caution.  They  doubled  on 
their  tracks  and  gathered  their  toll  of  the  sea  from  fish- 
ing boats  here  and  there  until  the  Blitebird  rode  deep  with 
cargo,  fresh  fish  to  be  served  on  many  tables  far  inland. 
MacRae  often  wondered  if  the  housewife  who  ordered 
her  weekly  ration  of  fish  and  those  who  picked  daintily 
at  the  savory  morsels  with  silver  forks  ever  thought 
how  they  came  by  this  food.  Men  till  the  sea  with 
pain  and  risk  and  infinite  labor,  as  they  till  the  land; 
only  the  fisherman  with  his  nets  and  hooks  and  gear 
does  not  sow,  he  only  reaps.  Nature  has  attended 
diligently  to  the  sowing,  from  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope 
to  Martha's  Vineyard,  from  Bering  Strait  to  Botany 
Bay. 

But  MacRae  soon  had  enough  of  that  and  came  back 
to  Squitty,  to  his  fireplace  and  his  books.  He  had  been 
accustomed  to  enjoy  the  winters,  the  clear  crisp  morn- 
ings that  varied  weeks  of  drenching  rain  which  washed 


HEARTS  ARE  NOT  ALWAYS  TRUMPS    185 

the  land  clean ;  to  prowl  about  in  the  woods  with  a  gun 
when  he  needed  meat;  to  bask  before  a  bed  of  coals  in 
the  fireplace  through  long  evenings  when  the  wind 
howled  and  the  rain  droned  on  the  roof  and  the  sea 
snored  along  the  rocky  beaches.  That  had  been  in  days 
before  he  learned  the  weight  of  loneliness,  when  his 
father  had  been  there  to  sit  quietly  beside  the  fire 
smoking  a  pipe,  when  Dolly  Ferrara  ran  wild  in  the 
woods  with  him  or  they  rode  for  pure  sport  the  tum- 
bling seas  in  a  dugout  canoe. 

Now  winter  was  a  dull  inaction,  a  period  of  discon- 
tent, in  which  thought  gnawed  at  him  like  an  ingrowing 
toenail.  Everything  seemed  out  of  joint.  He  found 
himself  feverishly  anxious  for  spring,  for  the  stress  and 
strain  of  another  tilt  with  Folly  Bay.  Sometimes  he 
asked  himself  where  he  would  come  out,  even  if  he  won 
all  along  the  line,  if  he  made  money,  gained  power, 
beat  Gower  ultimately  to  his  knees,  got  back  his  land. 
He  did  not  try  to  peer  too  earnestly  into  the  future. 
It  seemed  a  little  misty.  He  was  too  much  concerned 
with  the  immediate  present,  looming  big  with  possi- 
bilities of  good  or  evil  for  himself.  Things  did  not 
seem  quite  so  simple  as  at  first.  A  great  many  com- 
plications, wholly  unforeseen,  had  arisen  since  he  came 
back  from  France.  But  he  was  committed  to  certain 
undertakings  from  which  he  neither  wished  nor  intended 
to  turn  aside,  —  not  so  long  as  he  had  the  will  to  choose. 

Christmas  came  again,  and  with  it  the  gathering  of 
the  Ferraras  for  their  annual  reunion,  —  Old  Manuel 
and  Joaquin,  young  Manuel  and  Ambrose  and  Vincent. 
Steve  they  could  speak  of  now  quite  casually.  He  had 
died  in  his  sea  boots  like  many  another  Ferrara.  It  was 
a  pity,  of  course,  but  it  was  the  chance  of  his  calling. 
And  the  gathering  was  stronger  in  numbers,  even  with 


i86  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

Steve  gone.  Ambrose  had  taken  himself  a  wife,  a  merry 
round-cheeked  girl  whose  people  were  coaxing  Ambrose 
to  quit  the  sea  for  a  more  profitable  undertaking  in 
timber.    And  also  Norman  Gower  was  there. 

MacRae  did  not  quite  know  how  to  take  that  young 
man.  He  had  had  stray  contacts  with  Norman  during 
the  Jast  few  weeks.  For  a  rich  man's  son  he  was  not  run- 
ning true  to  form.  He  and  Long  Tom  Spence  had 
struck  up  a  partnership  in  a  group  of  mineral  claims 
on  the  Knob,  that  conical  mountain  which  lifted  like 
one  of  the  pyramids  out  of  the  middle  of  Squitty  Island. 
There  had  been  much  talk  of  those  claims.  Years  ago 
Bill  Munro  —  he  who  died  of  the  flu  in  his  cabin  beside 
the  Cove  —  had  staked  those  claims.  Munro  was  a 
young  man  then,  a  prospector.  He  had  inveigled  other 
men  to  share  his  hopes  and  labors,  to  grubstake  him 
while  he  drove  the  tunnel  that  was  to  cut  the  vein. 
MacRae's  father  had  taken  a  hand  in  this.  So  had 
Peter  Ferrara.  But  these  informal  partnerships  had 
always  lapsed.  Old  Bill  Munro's  prospects  had  never 
got  beyond  the  purely  prospective  stage.  The  copper 
was  there,  ample  traces  of  gold  and  silver.  But  he 
never  developed  a  showing  big  enough  to  lure  capital. 
When  Munro  died  the  claims  had  been  long  abandoned. 

Long  Tom  Spence  had  suddenly  relocated  them. 
Some  working  agreement  had  included  Uncle  Peter  and 
young  Gower.  Long  Tom  went  about  hinting  mysteri- 
ously of  fortunes.  Peter  Ferrara  even  admitted  that 
there  was  a  good  showing.  Norman  had  been  there 
for  weeks,  living  with  Spence  in  a  shack,  sweating  day 
after  day  in  the  tunnel.  They  were  all  beginning  to 
speak  of  it  as  "  the  mine." 

Norman  had  rid  himself  of  that  grouchy  frown.  He 
was  always  singing  or  whistling  or  laughing.     His  fair. 


HEARTS  ARE  NOT  ALWAYS  TRUMPS    187 

rather  florid  face  glowed  with  a  perpetual  good  nature. 
He  treated  MacRae  to  the  same  cheerful,  careless  air 
that  he  had  for  everything  and  everybody.  And  when 
he  was  about  Uncle  Peter's  house  at  the  Cove  he  monop- 
olized Dolly,  an  attitude  which  Dolly  herself  as  well  as 
her  uncle  seemed  to  find  agreeable  and  proper. 

MacRae  finally  found  himself  compelled  to  accept 
Norman  Gower  as  part  of  the  group.  He  was  a  little 
surprised  to  find  that  he  harbored  no  decided  feeling 
about  young  Gower,  one  way  or  the  other.  If  he  felt 
at  all,  it  was  a  mild  impatience  that  another  man  had 
established  a  relation  with  Dolly  Ferrara  which  put 
aside  old  friendships.  He  found  himself  constrained 
more  and  more  to  treat  Dolly  like  any  other  pleasant 
young  woman  of  his  acquaintance.  He  did  not  quite 
like  that.  He  and  Dolly  Ferrara  had  been  such  good 
chums.  Besides,  he  privately  considered  that  Dolly 
was  throwing  herself  away  on  a  man  weak  enough  to 
make  the  tragic  blunder  young  Gower  had  made  in 
London.  But  that  was  their  own  affair.  Altogether, 
MacRae  found  it  quite  impossible  to  muster  up  any 
abiding  grudge  against  young  Gower  on  his  own  account. 

So  he  let  matters  stand  and  celebrated  Christmas 
with  them.  Afterward  they  got  aboard  the  Bluebird 
and  went  to  a  dance  at  Potter's  Landing,  where  for  all 
that  Jack  MacRae  was  the  local  hero,  both  of  the  great 
war  and  the  salmon  war  of  the  past  season,  both  Dolly 
and  Norman,  he  privately  conceded,  enjoyed  themselves 
a  great  deal  more  than  he  did.  Their  complete  absorp- 
tion in  each  other  rather  irritated  him. 

They  came  back  to  the  Cove  early  in  the  morning. 
The  various  Ferraras  disposed  themselves  about  Peter's 
house  to  sleep,  and  MacRae  went  on  to  his  own  place. 
About  an  hour  after  daybreak  he  saw  Norman  Gower 


i88  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

pass  up  the  bush  trail  to  the  mine  with  a  heavy  pack 
of  provisions  on  his  back.  And  MacRae  wondered  idly 
if  Norman  was  bucking  the  game  in  earnest,  strictly 
on  his  own,  and  why? 

Late  in  January  the  flash  of  a  white  skirt  and  a  sky- 
blue  sweater  past  his  dooryard  apprised  MacRae  that 
Betty  was  back.  And  he  did  not  want  to  see  Betty  or 
talk  with  her.  He  hoped  her  stay  would  be  brief.  He 
even  asked  himself  testily  why  people  like  that  wanted 
to  come  to  a  summer  dwelling  in  the  middle  of  winter. 
But  her  so j  oum  was  not  so  brief  as  he  hoped.  At  divers 
times  thereafter  he  saw  her  in  the  distance,  faring  to 
and  fro  from  Peter  Ferrara's  house,  out  on  the  trail  that 
ran  to  the  Knob,  several  times  when  the  sea  was  calm 
paddling  a  canoe  or  rowing  alongshore.  Also  he  had 
glimpses  of  the  thickset  figure  of  Horace  Gower  walking 
along  the  cliffs.  MacRae  avoided  both.  That  was  easy 
enough,  since  he  knew  every  nook  and  bush  and  guUy  on 
that  end  of  the  island.  But  the  mere  sight  of  Gower 
was  an  irritation.  He  resented  the  man's  presence.  It 
affected  him  like  a  challenge.  It  set  him  always  ponder- 
ing ways  and  means  to  secure  ownership  of  those  acres 
again  and  forever  bar  Gower  from  walking  along  those 
cliffs  with  that  masterful  air  of  possession.  Only  a 
profound  distaste  for  running  away  from  anything 
kept  him  from  quitting  the  island  while  they  were  there, 
those  two,  one  of  whom  he  was  growing  to  hate  far  be- 
yond the  original  provocation,  the  other  whom  he 
loved,  —  for  MacRae  admitted  reluctantly,  resentfully, 
that  he  did  love  Betty,  and  he  was  afraid  of  where  that 
emotion  might  lead  him.  He  recognized  the  astonish- 
ing power  of  passion.  It  troubled  him,  stirred  up 
an  amazing  conflict  at  times  between  his  reason  and  his 
impulses.    He  fell  back  always  upon  the  conclusion  that 


HEARTS  ARE  NOT  ALWAYS  TRUMPS    189 

love  was  an  irrational  thing  anyway,  that  it  should  not 
be  permitted  to  upset  a  man's  logical  plan  of  existence. 
But  he  was  never  very  sure  that  this  conclusion  would 
stand  a  practical  test. 

The  southern  end  of  Squitty  was  not  of  such  vast 
scope  that  two  people  could  roam  here  and  there  without 
sometime  coming  face  to  face,  particularly  when  these 
two  were  a  man  and  a  woman  driven  by  a  spirit  of  rest- 
lessness to  lonely  wanderings.  MacRae  went  into  the 
woods  with  his  rifle  one  day  in  search  of  venison.  He 
wounded  a  buck,  followed  him  down  a  long  canyon,  and 
killed  his  game  within  sight  of  the  sea.  He  took  the 
carcass  by  a  leg  and  dragged  it  through  the  bright 
green  salal  brush.  As  he  stepped  out  of  a  screening 
thicket  on  to  driftwood  piled  by  storm  and  tide,  he  saw 
a  rowboat  hauled  up  on  the  shingle  above  reach  of 
short,  steep  breakers,  and  a  second  glance  showed  him 
Betty  sitting  on  a  log  close  by,  looking  at  him. 

"  Stormbound  ?  "  he  asked  her. 

''  Yes.    I  was  rowing  and  the  wind  came  up." 

She  rose  and  came  over  to  look  at  the  dead  deer. 

"  What  beautiful  animals  they  are ! "  she  said.  "  Is  n't 
it  a  pity  to  kill  them?" 

"  It 's  a  pity,  too,  to  kill  cattle  and  sheep  and  pigs, 
to  haul  fish  by  the  gills  out  of  the  sea,"  MacRae  replied; 
"  to  trap  marten  and  mink  and  fox  and  beaver  and 
bear  for  their  skins.  But  men  must  eat  and  women 
must  wear  furs." 

"How  horribly  logical  you  are,"  Betty  murmured. 
"You  make  a  natural  sympathy  appear  wishy-washy 
sentimentalism." 

She  reseated  herself  on  the  log.  MacRae  sat  down 
beside  her.  He  looked  at  her  searchingly.  He  could 
not  keep  his  eyes  away.     A  curious  inconsistency  was 


igo  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

revealed  to  him.  He  sat  beside  Betty,  responding  to 
the  potent  stimuli  of  her  nearness  and  wishing  pettishly 
that  she  were  a  thousand  miles  away,  so  that  he  would 
not  be  troubled  by  the  magic  of  her  lips  and  eyes  and 
unruly  hair,  the  musical  cadences  of  her  voice.  There 
was  a  subtle  quality  of  expectancy  about  her,  as  if 
she  sat  there  waiting  for  him  to  say  something,  do  some- 
thing, as  if  her  mere  presence  were  powerful  to  compel 
him  to  speak  and  act  as  she  desired.  MacRae  realized 
the  fantasy  of  those  impressions.  Betty  sat  looking  at 
him  calmly,  her  hands  idle  in  her  lap.  If  there  were  in 
her  soul  any  of  the  turmoil  that  was  fast  rising  in  his, 
it  was  not  outwardly  manifested  by  any  sign  whatever. 
For  that  matter,  MacRae  knew  that  he  himself  was 
placid  enough  on  the  surface.  Nor  did  he  feel  the  urge 
of  inconsequential  speech.  There  was  no  embarrassment 
in  that  mutual  silence,  only  the  tug  of  a  compelling  de- 
sire to  take  her  in  his  arms,  which  he  must  resist. 

"There  are  times,"  Betty  said  at  last,  "when  you 
live  up  to  your  nickname  with  a  vengeance." 

"There  are  times,"  MacRae  replied  slowly,  "when 
that  is  the  only  wise  thing  for  a  man  to  do." 

"  And  you,  I  suppose,  rather  pride  yourself  on  being 
wise  in  your  day  and  generation." 

There  was  gentle  raillery  in  her  tone. 

*'  I  don't  like  you  to  be  sarcastic,"  he  said. 

*'I  don't  think  you  like  me  sarcastic  or  otherwise," 
Betty  observed,  after  a  moment's  silence. 

"But  I  do,"  he  protested.  "That's  the  devil  of  it. 
I  do  —  and  you  know  I  do.  It  would  be  a  great  deal 
better  if  I  didn't." 

Betty's  fingers  began  to  twist  in  her  lap.  The  color 
rose  faintly  in  her  smooth  cheeks.  Her  eyes  turned  to 
the  sea. 


HEARTS  ARE  NOT  ALWAYS  TRUMPS     191 

*'  I  don't  know  why,"  she  said  gently.  "  I  'd  hate  to 
think  it  would." 

MacRae  did  not  find  any  apt  reply  to  that.  His  mind 
was  in  an  agonized  muddle,  in  which  he  could  only  per- 
ceive one  or  two  things  with  any  degree  of  clearness. 
Betty  loved  him.  He  was  sure  of  that.  He  could  tell 
her  that  he  loved  her.  And  then.''  Therein  arose  the 
conflict.  Marriage  was  the  natural  sequence  of  love. 
And  when  he  contemplated  marriage  with  Betty  he 
found  himself  unable  to  detach  her  from  her  back- 
ground, in  which  lurked  something  which  to  MacRae's 
imagination  loomed  sinister,  hateful.  To  make  peace 
with  Horace  Gower  —  granting  that  Gower  was  willing 
for  such  a  consummation  —  for  love  of  his  daughter 
struck  MacRae  as  something  very  near  to  dishonor. 
And  if,  contrariwise,  he  repeated  to  Betty  the  ugly 
story  which  involved  her  father  and  his  father,  she 
would  be  harassed  by  irreconcilable  forces  even  if  she 
cared  enough  to  side  with  him  against  her  own  people. 
MacRae  was  gifted  with  acute  perception,  in  some 
things.  He  said  to  himself  despairingly  —  nor  was  it 
the  first  time  that  he  had  said  it  —  that  you  cannot 
mix  oil  and  water. 

He  could  do  nothing  at  all.  That  was  the  sum  of  his 
ultimate  conclusions.  His  hands  were  tied.  He  could 
not  go  back  and  he  could  not  go  on.  He  sat  beside 
Betty,  longing  to  take  her  in  his  arms  and  still  fighting 
stoutly  against  that  impulse.  He  was  afraid  of  his 
impulses. 

A  faint  moisture  broke  out  on  his  face  with  that 
acute  nervous  strain.  A  lump  rose  chokingly  in  his 
throat.  He  stared  out  at  the  white-crested  seas  that 
came  marching  up  the  Gulf  before  a  rising  wind  until 
his  eyes  grew  misty.     Then  he  slid  down  off  the  log 


192  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

and  laid  his  head  on  Betty's  knee.  A  weight  of  dumb 
grief  oppressed  him.  He  wanted  to  cry,  and  he  was 
ashamed  of  his  weakness. 

Betty's  fingers  stole  caressingly  over  his  bare  head, 
rumpled  his  hair,  stroked  his  hot  cheek. 

"Johnny-boy,"  she  said  at  last,  "what  is  it  that 
comes  like  a  fog  between  you  and  me  ?  " 

MacRae  did  not  answer. 

"  I  make  love  to  you  quite  openly,"  Betty  went  on. 
"  And  I  don't  seem  to  be  the  least  bit  ashamed  of  doing 
so.  I  'm  not  a  silly  kid.  I  'm  nearlj^  as  old  as  you  are, 
and  I  know  quite  well  what  I  want  —  which  happens 
to  be  you.  I  love  you.  Silent  John.  The  man  is  sup- 
posed to  be  the  pursuer.  But  I  seem  to  have  that  in- 
stinct myself.  Besides,"  she  laughed  tremulously, 
"  this  is  leap  year.  And,  remember,  you  kissed  me.  Or 
did  I  kiss  you?    Which  was  it.  Jack.?  " 

MacRae  seated  himself  on  the  log  beside  her.  He  put 
his  arm  around  her  and  drew  her  close  to  him.  That 
disturbing  wave  of  emotion  which  had  briefly  mastered 
him  was  gone.  He  felt  only  a  passionate  tenderness  for 
Betty  and  a  pity  for  them  both.  But  he  had  deter- 
mined what  to  do. 

"I  do  love  you,  Betty,"  he  said — ^"your  hair  and 
your  eyes  and  your  lips  and  the  sound  of  your  voice 
and  the  way  you  walk  and  everything  that  is  you. 
Is  that  quite  plain  enough.?  It's  a  sort  of  emotional 
madness.'* 

"  Well,  I  am  afflicted  with  the  same  sort  of  madness," 
she  admitted.     "  And  I  like  it.     It  is  natural." 

"But  you  wouldn't  like  it  if  you  knew  it  meant  a 
series  of  mental  and  spiritual  conflicts  that  would  be 
almost  like  physical  torture,"  he  said  slowly.  "  You  'd 
be  afraid  of  it." 


HEARTS  ARE  NOT  ALWAYS  TRUMPS    193 

"  And  you  ?  "   she  demanded. 

"Yes,"   he  said  simply.     "I  am." 

"Then  you're  a  poor  sort  of  lover,"  she  flung  at 
him,  and  freed  herself  from  his  arms  with  a  quick  twist 
of  her  body.  Her  breast  heaved.  She  moved  away  from 
him. 

"I'll  admit  being  a  poor  lover,  perhaps,"  MacRae 
said.  "  I  did  n't  want  to  love  you.  I  should  n't  love 
you.  I  really  ought  to  hate  you.  I  don't,  but  if  I  was 
consistent,  I  should.  I  ought  to  take  every  opportunity 
to  hurt  you  just  because  you  are  a  Gower.  I  have 
good  reason  to  do  so.  I  can't  tell  you  why  —  or  at  least 
I  am  not  going  to  tell  you  l^hy.  I  don't  think  it  would 
mend  matters  if  I  did.  I  dare  say  I  'm  a  better  fighter 
than  a  lover.  I  fight  in  the  open,  on  the  square.  And 
because  I  happen  to  care  enough  to  shrink  from  making 
you  risk  things  I  can't  dodge,  I  'm  a  poor  lover.  Well, 
perhaps  I  am." 

"  I  did  n't  really  mean  that.  Jack,"  Betty  muttered. 

"I  know  you  didn't,"  he  returned  gently.  "But 
I  mean  what  I  have  just  said." 

"You  mean  that  for  some  reason  which  I  do  not 
know  and  which  you  will  not  tell  me,  there  is  such  bad 
blood  between  you  and  my  father  that  you  can't  —  you 
won't  —  won't  even  take  a  chance  on  me?" 

"  Something  like  that,"  MacRae  admitted.  "  Only 
you  put  it  badly.  You  'd  either  tie  my  hands,  which 
I  could  n't  submit  to,  or  you  'd  find  yourself  torn  be- 
tween two  factions,  and  life  would  be  a  pretty  sad 
affair." 

"I  asked  you  once  before,  and  you  told  me  it  was 
something  that  happened  before  either  of  us  was  born," 
Betty  said  thoughtfully.  "I  am  going  to  get  at  the 
bottom  of  this  somehow.    I  wonder  if  you  do  really  care, 


194  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

or  if  this  is  all  camouflage,  —  if  you're  just  pla3ring 
with  me  to  see  how  big  a  fool  I  mil  make  of  myself." 

That  queer  mistrust  of  him  which  suddenly  clouded 
Betty's  face  and  made  her  pretty  mouth  harden  roused 
Jack  MacRae  to  an  intolerable  fury.  It  was  like  a 
knife  in  a  tender  spot.  He  had  been  stifling  the  impulse 
to  forget  and  bury  all  these  ancient  wrongs  and  injus- 
tices for  which  neither  of  them  was  responsible  but  for 
which,  so  far  as  he  could  see,  they  must  both  suifer. 
Something  cracked  in  him  at  Betty's  words.  She 
jumped,  warned  by  the  sudden  blaze  in  his  eyes.  But 
he  caught  her  with  a  movement  quicker  than  her  own. 
He  held  her  by  the  arms  with  fingers  that  gripped  like 
iron  clamps.     He  shook  her. 

"  You  wonder  if  I  really  care,"  he  cried.  "  My  God, 
can't  you  see?  Can't  you  feel?  Must  a  man  grovel 
and  weep  and  rave  ?  " 

Betty  whitened  a  little  at  this  storm  which  she  had 
evoked.  But  she  did  not  flinch.  Her  eyes  looked 
straight  into  his,  fearlessly. 

"You  are  raving  now,"  she  said.  "And  you  are 
hurting  my  arms  terribly." 

MacRae  released  his  hold  on  her.  His  hands 
dropped  to  his  sides. 

"I  suppose  I  was,"  he  said  in  a  flat,  lifeless  tone. 
"But  don't  say  that  to  me  again,  ever.  You  can  say 
anything  you  like,  Betty,  except  that  I'm  not  in 
earnest.     I  don't  deserve  that." 

Betty  retreated  a  little.  MacRae  was  not  even  look- 
ing at  her  now.  His  eyes  were  turned  to  the  sea,  to 
hide  the  blur  that  crept  into  them  in  spite  of  his  will. 

"You  don't  deserve  anything,"  Betty  said  dis- 
tinctly. She  moved  warily  away  as  she  spoke.  "You 
have   the    physical   courage   to    face   death;    but    you 


HEARTS  ARE  NOT  ALWAYS  TRUMPS    195 

haven't  the  moral  courage  to  face  a  problem  in  living, 
even  though  you  love  me.  You  take  it  for  granted 
that  I'm  as  weak  as  you  are.  You  won't  even  give  me 
a  chance  to  prove  whether  love  is  strong  or  weak  in 
the  face  of  trouble.  And  I  will  never  give  you  another 
chance  —  never." 

She  sprang  from  the  beach  to  the  low  pile  of  drift- 
wood and  from  that  plunged  into  the  thicket.  MacRae 
did  not  try  to  follow.  He  did  not  even  move.  He 
looked  after  her  a  minute.  Then  he  sat  down  on  the 
log  again  and  stared  at  the  steady  march  of  the  swells. 
There  was  a  sense  of  finality  in  this  thing  which  made 
him  flounder  desperately.  Still,  he  assured  himself,  it 
had  to  be.  And  if  it  had  to  be  that  way  it  was  better 
to  have  it  so  understood.  Betty  would  never  look  at 
him  again  with  that  disturbing  message  in  her  eyes. 
He  would  not  be  troubled  by  a  futile  longing.  But  it 
hurt.  He  had  never  imagined  how  so  abstract  a  thing 
as  emotion  could  breed  such  an  ache  in  a  man's  heart. 

After  a  little  he  got  up.  There  was  a  trail  behind 
that  thicket,  an  old  game  trail  widened  by  men's  feet, 
that  ran  along  the  seaward  slope  to  Cradle  Bay.  He 
went  up  now  to  this  path.  His  eye,  used  to  the  practice 
of  woodcraft,  easily  picked  up  tiny  heel  marks,  toe 
prints,  read  their  message  mechanically.  Betty  had 
been  running.     She  had  gone  home. 

He  went  back  to  the  beach.  The  rowboat  and  the 
rising  tide  caught  his  attention.  He  hauled  the  boat 
up  on  the  driftwood  so  that  it  should  not  float  away. 
Then  he  busied  himself  on  the  deer's  legs  with  a  knife 
for  a  minute  and  shouldered  the  carcass. 

It  was  a  mile  and  a  half  across  country  to  the  head 
of  Squitty  Cove.  He  had  intended  to  hang  his  deer  in 
a  tree  by  the  beach  and  come  for  it  later  with  a  boat. 


196  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

Now  he  took  up  this  hundred-pound  burden  for  the 
long  carry  over  steep  hills  and  through  brushy  hollows 
in  the  spirit  of  the  medieval  flagellantes,  mortifying 
his  flesh  for  the  ease  of  his  soul. 

An  hour  or  so  later  he  came  out  on  a  knoll  over- 
looking all  the  southeastern  face  of  Squitty.  Below, 
the  wind-harassed  Gulf  spread  its  ruffled  surface.  He 
looked  down  on  the  cliffs  and  the  Cove  and  Cradle  Bay. 
He  could  see  Gower's  cottage  white  among  the  green, 
one  chimney  spitting  blue  smoke  that  the  wind  carried 
away  in  a  wispy  banner.  He  could  see  a  green  patch 
behind  his  own  house  with  the  white  headboard  that 
marked  his  father's  grave.  He  could  see  Poor  Man's 
Rock  bare  its  kelp-grown  head  between  seas,  and  on 
the  point  above  the  Rock  a  solitary  figure,  squat  and 
brown,  that  he  knew  must  be  Horace  Gower. 

MacRae  laid  down  his  pack  to  rest  his  aching  shoul- 
ders. But  there  was  no  resting  the  ache  in  his  heart. 
Nor  was  it  restful  to  gaze  upon  any  of  these  things 
within  the  span  of  his  eye.  He  was  reminded  of  too 
much  which  it  was  not  good  to  remember.  As  he  sat 
staring  down  on  the  distant  Rock  and  a  troubled  sea 
with  an  intolerable  heaviness  in  his  breast,  he  recalled 
that  so  must  his  father  have  looked  down  on  Poor  Man's 
Rock  in  much  the  same  anguished  spirit  long  ago. 
And  Jack  MacRae's  mind  reacted  morbidly  to  the  sug^ 
gestion,  the  parallel.  His  eyes  turned  with  smolder- 
ing fire  to  the  stumpy  figure  on  the  tip  of  Point  Old. 

"I'll  pay  it  all  back  yet,"  he  gritted.  "Betty  or 
no  Betty,  I'll  make  him  wish  he'd  kept  his  hands  off 
the  MacRaes." 

About  the  time  Jack  MacRae  with  his  burden  of  ven- 
ison drew  near  his  own  dooryard,  Betty  Gower  came  out 


HEARTS  ARE  NOT  ALWAYS  TRUMPS    197 

upon  the  winter-sodden  lawn  before  their  cottage  and 
having  crossed  it  ran  lightly  up  the  steps  to  the  wide 
porch.  From  there  she  saw  her  father  standing  on  the 
Point.  She  called  to  him.  At  her  hail  he  came  trudg- 
ing to  the  house.  Betty  was  piling  wood  in  the  living- 
room  fireplace  when  he  came  in. 

**  I  was  beginning  to  worry  about  you,"  he  said. 

"The  wind  got  too  much  for  me,"  she  answered, 
"so  I  put  the  boat  on  the  beach  a  mile  or  so  along 
and  walked  home." 

Gower  drew  a  chair  up  to  the  fire. 

** Blaze  feels  good,"  he  remarked.  "There's  a  chill 
in  this  winter  air." 

Betty  made  no  comment. 

"Getting  lonesome?"  he  inquired  after  a  minute. 
"It  seems  to  me  you've  been  restless  the  last  day  or 
two.     Want  to  go  back  to  town,  Betty.?" 

"  I  wonder  why  we  come  here  and  stay  and  stay,  out 
of  reach  of  everything  and  everybody?"  she  said  at 
last. 

"  Blest  if  I  know,"  Gower  answered  casually.  "  Ex- 
cept that  we  like  to.  It's  a  restful  place,  isn't  it? 
You  work  harder  at  having  a  good  time  in  town  than  I 
ever  did  making  money.  Well,  we  don't  have  to  be 
hermits  unless  we  like.  We'll  go  back  to  mother  and 
the  giddy  whirl  to-morrow,  if  you  like." 

"  We  might  as  well,  I  think,"   she  said  absently. 

For  a  minute  neither  spoke.  The  fire  blazed  up  in  a 
roaring  flame.  Raindrops  slashed  suddenly  against 
the  windows  out  of  a  storm-cloud  driven  up  by  the  wind. 
Betty  turned  her  eyes  on  her  father. 

"Did  you  ever  do  anything  to  Jack  MacRae  that 
would  give  him  reason  to  hate  you  ? "  she  asked 
bluntly. 


igS  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

Gower  shook  his  head  without  troubling  to  look  at 
her.    He  kept  his  face  steadfastly  to  the  fire. 

"  No,"  he  said.  "  The  other  way  about,  if  any- 
thing.   He  put  a  crimp  in  me  last  season." 

"  I  remember  you  said  you  were  going  to  smash  him," 
she  said  thoughtfully. 

"Did  I?"  he  made  answer  in  an  indifferent  tone. 
"  Well,  I  might.  And  then  again  I  might  not.  He  may 
do  the  smashing.  He's  a  harder  proposition  than  I 
figured  he  would  be,  in  several  ways." 

"  That  is  n't  it,"  Betty  said,  as  if  to  herself.  "  Then 
you  must  have  had  some  trouble  with  his  father  —  long 
ago.  Something  that  hurt  him  enough  for  him  to  pass 
a  grudge  on  to  Jack.  What  was  it,  daddy?  Anything 
real?" 

"Jack,  eh?"  Gower  passed  over  the  direct  ques- 
tion. "  You  must  be  getting  on.  Have  you  been  seeing 
much  of  that  young  man  lately?  " 

"What  does  that  matter?"  Betty  returned  im- 
patiently. "  Of  course  I  see  him.  Is  there  any  reason 
I  shouldn't?" 

Gower  picked  up  a  brass  poker.  He  leaned  forward, 
digging  aimlessly  at  the  fire,  stirring  up  tiny  cascades 
of  sparks  that  were  sucked  glowing  into  the  black 
chimney  throat. 

"  Perhaps  no  reason  that  would  strike  you  as  valid," 
he  said  slowly.  "Still  —  I  don't  know.  Do  you  like 
him?" 

"You  won't  answer  my  questions,"  Betty  com- 
plained.    "  Why  should  I  answer  yours  ?  " 

"  There  are  plenty  of  nice  young  fellows  in  your  own 
crowd,"  Gower  went  on,  still  poking  mechanically  at 
the  fire.     "  Why  pick  on  young  MacRae  ?  " 

"  You  're  evading,  daddy,"  Betty  murmured.   "  Why 


HEARTS  ARE  NOT  ALWAYS  TRUMPS    199 

should  n^t  I  pick  on  Jack  MacRae  if  I  like  him  —  if 
he  likes  me  ?    That 's  what  I  'm  trying  to  find  out.'' 

"Does  he?"  Gower  asked  pointblank. 

"  Yes,"  Betty  admitted  in  a  reluctant  whisper.  "  He 
does  —  but  —  why  don't  you  tell  me,  daddy,  what  I  'm 
up  against,  as  you  would  say?  What  did  you  ever  do 
to  old  Donald  MacRae  that  his  son  should  have  a  feel- 
ing that  is  stronger  than  love  ?  " 

"  You  think  he  loves  you  ?  " 

"  I  know  it,"  Betty  murmured. 

"And  you?"  Gower's  deep  voice  seemed  harsh. 

Betty  threw  out  her  hands  in  an  impatient  gesture. 

"Must  I  shout  it  out  loud?"   she  cried. 

"  You  always  were  different  from  most  girls,  in  some 
things,"  Gower  observed  reflectively.  "Iron  under 
your  softness.  I  never  knew  you  to  stop  trying  to 
get  anything  you  really  wanted,  not  while  there  was  a 
chance  to  get  it.  Still  —  don't  you  think  it  would  be 
as  well  for  you  to  stop  wanting  young  MacRae  — 
since  he  doesn't  want  you  bad  enough  to  try  to  get 
you?     Eh?" 

He  still  kept  his  face  studiously  averted.  His  tone 
was  kind,  full  of  a  peculiar  tenderness  that  he  kept  for 
Betty  alone. 

She  rose  and  perched  herself  on  the  arm  of  his  chair, 
caught  and  drew  his  head  against  her,  forced  him  to 
look  up  into  eyes  pretematurally  bright. 

"You  don't  seem  to  understand,"  she  said.  "It 
is  n't  that  Jack  does  n't  want  me  badly  enough.  He 
could  have  me,  and  I  think  he  knows  that  too.  But 
there  is  something,  something  that  drives  him  the 
other  way.  He  loves  me.  I  know  he  does.  And  still 
he  has  spells  of  hating  all  us  Gowers  —  especially  you. 
I  know  he  would  n't  do  that  without  reason." 


200  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

"  Does  n't  he  tell  you  the  reason  ?  " 

Betty  shook  her  head. 

''  Would  I  be  asking  you,  daddy  ?  '* 

**I  can't  tell  you,  either,"  Gower  rumbled  deep  in 
his  throat. 

"  Is  it  something  that  can't  be  mended?  "  Betty  put 
her  face  down  against  his,  and  he  felt  the  tears  wet  on 
her  cheek.  "  Think,  daddy.  I  'm  beginning  to  be  ter- 
ribly unhappy." 

"That  seems  to  be  a  family  failing,"  Gower  mut- 
tered. "I  can't  mend  it,  Betty.  I  don't  know  what 
young  MacRae  knows  or  what  he  feels,  but  I  can  guess. 
I  'd  make  it  worse  if  I  meddled.  Should  I  go  to  this 
hot-headed  young  fool  and  say,  *  Come  on,  let's  shake 
hands,  and  you  marry  my  daughter'?  " 

"Don't  be  absurd,"  Betty  flashed.  "I'm  not  ask- 
ing you  to  do  anything." 

"  I  could  n't  do  anything  in  this  case  if  I  wanted  to," 
Gower  declared.  "As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  think  I'd 
put  young  MacRae  out  of  my  head,  if  I  were  you.  I 
would  n't  pick  him  for  a  husband,  anyway." 

Betty  rose  to  her  feet. 

"  You  brought  me  into  the  world,"  she  said  passion- 
ately. "  You  have  fed  me  and  clothed  me  and  educated 
me  and  humored  all  my  whims  ever  since  I  can  remem- 
ber. But  you  can't  pick  a  husband  for  me.  I  shall  do 
that  for  myself.  It's  silly  to  tell  me  to  put  Jack 
MacRae  out  of  my  head.  He  is  n't  in  my  head.  He 's 
in  my  —  my  —  heart.  And  I  can  keep  him  there,  if 
I  can't  have  him  in  my  arms.  Put  him  out  of  my 
head!  You  talk  as  if  loving  and  marrying  were  like 
dealing  in  fish." 

"I  wish  it  were,"  Gower  rumbled.  "I  might  have 
had  some  success  at  it  myself." 


HEARTS  ARE  NOT  ALWAYS  TRUMPS    201 

Betty  did  not  even  vouchsafe  reply.  Probably  she 
did  not  even  hear  what  he  said.  She  turned  and  went 
to  the  window,  stood  looking  out  at  the  rising  turmoil 
of  the  sea,  at  the  lowering  scud  of  the  clouds,  dabbing 
surreptitiously  at  her  eyes  with  a  handkerchief.  After 
a  little  she  walked  out  of  the  room.  Her  feet  sounded 
lightly  on  the  stairs. 

Gower  bent  to  the  fire  again.  He  resumed  his  aim- 
less stirring  of  the  coals.  A  grim,  twisted  smile  played 
about  his  lips.  But  his  eyes  were  as  somber  as  the 
storm-blackened  winter  sky. 


CHAPTER    XVI 
En  Famille 

Horace  Gower's  town  house  straddled  the  low  crest 
of  a  narrow  peninsula  which  juts  westward  into  the  Gulf 
from  the  heart  of  the  business  section  of  Vancouver. 
The  tip  of  this  peninsula  ends  in  the  green  forest  of 
Stanley  Park,  which  is  like  no  other  park  in  all  North 
America,  either  in  its  nature  or  its  situation.  It  is 
a  sizable  stretch  of  ancient  forest,  standing  within  gun- 
shot of  skyscrapers,  modern  hotels,  great  docks  where 
China  freighters  unload  tea  and  silk.  Hard  on  the 
flank  of  a  modem  seaport  this  area  of  primitive  wood- 
land broods  in  the  summer  sun  and  the  winter  rains  not 
greatly  different  from  what  it  must  have  been  in  those 
days  when  only  the  Siwash  Indians  penetrated  its 
shadowy  depths. 

The  rear  of  Gower's  house  abutted  against  the  park, 
neighbor  to  great  tall  firs  and  massive,  branchy  cedars 
and  a  jungle  of  fern  and  thicket  bisected  by  a  few  paths 
and  drives,  with  the  sea  lapping  all  about  three  sides 
of  its  seven-mile  boundary.  From  Gower's  northward 
windows  the  Capilano  canyon  opened  between  two 
mountains  across  the  Inlet.  Southward  other  windows 
gave  on  English  Bay  and  beach  sands  where  one  could 
count  a  thousand  swimmers  on  a  summer  afternoon. 

The  place  was  only  three  blocks  from  Abbott's. 
The  house  itself  was  not  unlike  Abbott's,  built  substan- 
tially of  gray  stone  and  set  in  ample  grounds.     But  it 


EN  FAMILLE  203 

was  a  good  deal  larger,  and  both  within  and  without  it 
W£is  much  more  elaborate,  as  befitted  the  dwelling  of  a 
successful  man  whose  wife  was  socially  a  leader  in- 
stead of  a  climber,  —  like  so  many  of  Vancouver's 
newly  rich.  There  was  order  and  system  and  a  smooth, 
unobtrusive  service  in  that  home.  Mrs.  Horace  A. 
Gower  rather  prided  herself  on  the  noiseless,  super- 
efficient  operation  of  her  domestic  machinery.  Any 
little  affair  was  sure  to  go  off  without  a  hitch,  to  be 
quite  charming,  you  know.  Mrs.  Gower  had  a  firmly 
established  prestige  along  certain  lines.  Her  business 
in  life  was  living  up  to  that  prestige,  not  only  that 
it  might  be  retained  but  judiciously  expanded. 

Upon  a  certain  March  morning,  however,  Mrs. 
Gower  seemed  to  be  a  trifle  shaken  out  of  her  usual 
complacency.  She  sat  at  a  rather  late  breakfast,  fac- 
ing her  husband,  flanked  on  either  hand  by  her  son  and 
daughter.  There  was  an  injured  droop  to  Mrs. 
Gower's  mouth,  a  slightly  indignant  air  about  her.  The 
conversation  had  reached  a  point  where  Mrs.  Gower 
felt  impelled  to  remove  her  pince-nez  and  polish  them 
carefully  with  a  bit  of  cloth.  This  was  an  infallible 
sign  of  distress. 

"I  cannot  see  the  least  necessity  for  it,  Norman," 
she  resumed  in  a  slightly  agitated,  not  to  say  petu- 
lant tone.  "  It 's  simply  ridiculous  for  a  young  man 
of  your  position  to  be  working  at  common  labor  with 
such  terribly  common  people.    It 's  degrading." 

Norman  was  employing  himself  upon  a  strip  of 
bacon. 

"  That 's  a  mere  matter  of  opinion,"  he  replied  at 
length.  "  Somebody  has  to  work.  I  have  to  do  some- 
thing for  myself  sometime,  and  it  suits  me  to  begin 
now,  in  this  particular  manner  which  annoys  you  so 


204  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

much.  I  don't  mind  work.  And  those  copper  claims 
are  a  rattling  good  prospect.  Everybody  says  so. 
We'll  make  a  barrel  of  money  out  of  them  yet.  Why 
shouldn't  I  peel  off  my  coat  and  go  at  it?" 

"By  the  way,"  Gower  asked  bluntly,  "what  occa- 
sioned this  flying  trip  to  England?" 

Norman  pushed  back  his  chair  a  trifle,  thrust  his 
hands  in  his  trousers  pockets  and  looked  straight  at 
his  father. 

"  My  own  private  business,"  he  answered  as  bluntly. 

"You  people,"  he  continued  after  a  brief  interval, 
"  seem  to  think  I  'm  still  in  knee  breeches." 

But  this  did  not  serve  to  turn  his  mother  from  her 
theme. 

"  It  is  quite  unnecessary  for  you  to  attempt  making 
money  in  such  a  primitive  manner,"  she  observed. 
"  We  have  plenty  of  money.  There  is  plenty  of  oppor- 
tunity for  you  in  your  father's  business,  if  you  must 
be  in  business." 

"  Huh !  "  Norman  grunted.  "  I  'm  no  good  in  my 
father's  business,  nor  anywhere  else,  in  his  private 
opinion.  It's  no  good,  mamma.  I'm  on  my  own  for 
keeps.  I'm  going  through  with  it.  I've  been  a  jolly 
fizzle  so  far.  I  'm  not  even  a  blooming  war  hero.  You 
just  stop  bothering  about  me." 

"I  really  can't  think  what's  got  into  you,"  Mrs. 
Gower  complained  in  a  tone  which  implied  volumes  of 
reproach.  "  It 's  bad  enough  for  your  father  and 
Betty  to  be  running  off  and  spending  so  much  time 
at  that  miserable  cottage  when  so  much  is  going  on 
here.  I  'm  simply  exhausted  keeping  things  up  without 
any  help  from  them.  But  this  vagary  of  yours  —  I 
really  can't  consider  it  anything  else  —  is  most  dis- 
tressing.    To  live  in  a  dirty  little  cabin  and  cook  your 


EN  FAMILLE  205 

own  food,  to  associate  with  such  men  —  it 's  simply 
dreadful!    Haven't  you  any  regard  for  our  position?  " 

"  I  'm  fed  up  with  our  position,"  Norman  retorted. 
A  sullen  look  was  gathering  about  his  mouth.  "  What 
does  it  amount  to?  A  lot  of  people  running  around 
in  circles,  making  a  splash  with  their  money.  You,  and 
the  sort  of  thing  you  call  our  position,  made  a  sissy  of 
me  right  up  till  the  war  came  along.  There  was  noth- 
ing I  was  good  for  but  parlor  tricks.  And  you  and 
everybody  else  expected  me  to  react  from  that  and  set 
things  afire  overseas.  I  didn't.  I  didn't  begin  to 
come  up  to  your  expectations  at  all.  But  if  I  didn't 
split  Germans  with  a  sword  or  do  any  heroics  I  did  get 
some  horse  sense  knocked  into  me  —  unbelievable  as 
that  may  appear  to  you.  I  learned  that  there  was  a 
sort  of  satisfaction  in  doing  things.  I  'm  having  a  try 
at  that  now.  And  you  needn't  imagine  I'm  going  to 
be  wet-nursed  along  by  your  money. 

"  As  for  my  associates,  and  the  degrading  influence* 
that  fill  you  with  such  dismay,"  Norman's  voice  flared 
into  real  anger,  "  they  may  not  have  much  polish  — 
but  they're  human.  I  like  them,  so  far  as  they  go. 
I  've  been  frostbitten  enough  by  the  crowd  I  grew  up 
with,  since  I  came  home,  to  appreciate  being  taken  for 
what  I  am,  not  what  I  may  or  may  not  have  done. 
Since  I  have  discovered  myself  to  have  a  funny  sort  of 
feeling  about  living  on  your  money,  it  behooves  me  to 
get  out  and  make  what  money  I  need  for  myself  —  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  I  'm  going  to  be  married  quite  soon. 
I  am  going  to  marry  "  —  Norman  rose  and  looked  down 
at  his  mother  with  something  like  a  flicker  of  amusement 
in  his  eyes  as  he  exploded  his  final  bombshell  —  "a  fish- 
erman's daughter.  A  poor  but  worthy  maiden,"  he 
finished  with  unexpected  irony. 


ao6  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

"Norman!"  His  mother's  voice  was  a  wail.  "A 
common  fisherman's  daughter?    Oh,  my  son,  my  son." 

She  shed  a  few  beautifully  restrained  tears. 

"A  common  fisherman's  daughter.  Exactly,"  Nor- 
man drawled.  "  Terrible  thing,  of  course.  Funny  the 
fish  scales  on  the  family  income  never  trouble  you." 

Mrs.  Gower  glared  at  him  through  her  glasses. 

"Who  is  this  —  this  woman?"  she  demanded. 

"  Dolly,"  Betty  whispered  under  her  breath. 

"Miss  Dolores  Ferrara  of  Squitty  Cove,"  Norman 
answered  imperturbably. 

"  A  foreigner  besides.  Great  Heavens !  Horace," 
Mrs.  Gower  appealed  to  her  husband,  "have  you  no 
influence  whatever  with  your  son  ?  " 

"Mamma,"  Betty  put  in,  "I  assure  you  you  are 
making  a  tremendous  fuss  about  nothing.  I  can  tell 
you  that  Dolly  Ferrara  is  really  quite  a  nice  girl.  / 
think  Norman  is  rather  lucky." 

"  Thanks,  Bet,"  Norman  said  promptly.  "  That 's 
the  first  decent  thing  I  've  heard  in  this  discussion." 

Mrs.  Gower  turned  the  battery  of  her  indignant  eyes 
on  her  daughter. 

"You,  I  presume,"  she  said  spitefully,  "will  be 
thinking  of  marrying  some  fisherman  next?  " 

"  If  she  did,  Bessie,"  Gower  observed  harshly,  "  it 
would  only  be  history  repeating  itself." 

Mrs.  Gower  flushed,  paled  a  little,  and  reddened 
again.  She  glared  —  no  other  word  describes  her  ex- 
pression—  at  her  husband  for  an  instant.  Then  she 
took  refuge  behind  her  dignity. 

"  There  is  a  downright  streak  of  vulgarity  in  you, 
Horace,"  she  said,  "which  I  am  sorry  to  see  crop  out 
in  my  children." 

"  Thank  you,  mamma,"  Betty  remarked  evenly. 


EN  FAMILLE  ao7 

Mrs.  Gower  whirled  on  Norman. 

"  I  wash  my  hands  of  you  completely,"  she  said  im- 
periously.    "I  am  ashamed  of  you." 

"  I  'd  rather  you  'd  be  ashamed  of  me,"  Norman  re- 
torted, "  than  that  I  should  be  ashamed  of  myself." 

"And  you,  sir," — 'he  faced  his  father,  speaking  in  a 
tone  of  formal  respect  which  did  not  conceal  a  palpable 
undercurrent  of  defiance  —  "  you  also,  I  suppose,  wash 
your  hands  of  me?  " 

Gower  looked  at  him  for  a  second.  His  face  was  a 
mask,  devoid  of  expression. 

"  You  're  a  man  grown,"  he  said.  "  Your  mother  has 
expressed  herself  as  she  might  be  expected  to.  I  say 
nothing." 

Norman  walked  to  the  door. 

"  I  don't  care  a  deuce  of  a  lot  what  you  say  or  what 
you  don't  say,  nor  even  what  you  think,"  he  flung  at 
them  angrily,  with  his  hand  on  the  knob.  *'  I  have  my 
own  row  to  hoe.  I  'm  going  to  hoe  it  my  own  style. 
And  that 's  all  there  is  to  it.  If  you  can't  even  wish  me 
luck,  why,  you  can  go  to  the  devil ! " 

"  Norman ! "  His  mother  lifted  her  voice  in  protest- 
ing horror.  Gower  himself  only  smiled,  a  bit  cynically. 
And  Betty  looked  at  the  door  which  closed  upon  her 
brother  with  a  wistful  sort  of  astonishment. 

Gower  first  found  occasion  for  speech. 

"Wliile  we  are  on  the  subject  of  intimate  family 
affairs,  Bessie,"  he  addressed  his  wife  casually,  "  I  may 
as  well  say  that  I  shall  have  to  call  on  you  for  some 
funds  —  about  thirty  thousand  dollars.  Forty  thou- 
sand would  be  better." 

Mrs.  Gower  stiffened  to  attention.  She  regarded 
her  husband  with  an  air  of  complete  disapproval, 
slightly  tinctured  with  surprise. 


2o8  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "really?" 

"I  shall  need  that  much  properly  to  undertake  this 
season's  operations,"  he  stated  calmly,  almost  in- 
differently. 

"Really?"  she  repeated.  "Are  you  in  difficulties 
again  ?  " 

"Again?"  he  echoed.  "It  is  fifteen  years  since  I 
was  in  a  corner  where  I  needed  any  of  your  money." 

"  It  seems  quite  recent  to  me,"  Mrs.  Gower  observed 
stiffly. 

"  Am  I  to  understand  from  that  that  you  don't  care 
to  advance  me  whatever  sum  I  require?"  he  asked 
gently. 

"I  don't  see  why  I  should,"  Mrs.  Gower  replied 
after  a  second's  reflection,  "  even  if  I  were  quite  able  to 
do  so.  This  place  costs  something  to  keep  up.  I 
can't  very  well  manage  on  less  than  two  thousand  a 
month.  And  Betty  and  I  must  be  clothed.  You  have  n't 
contributed  much  recently,  Horace." 

"No?  I  had  the  impression  that  I  had  been  con- 
tributing pretty  freely  for  thirty  years,"  Gower  re- 
turned dryly.  "  I  paid  the  bills  up  to  December.  Last 
season  wasn't  a  particularly  good  one  —  for  me." 

"  That  was  chiefly  due  to  your  own  mismanagement, 
I  should  say,"  Mrs.  Gower  commented  tartly.  "Put- 
ting the  whole  cannery  burden  on  Norman  when  the 
poor  boy  had  absolutely  no  experience.  Really,  you 
must  have  mismanaged  dreadfully.  I  heard  only  the 
other  day  that  the  Robbin-Steele  plants  did  better 
last  season  than  they  ever  did.  I  'm  sure  the  Abbotts 
made  money  last  year.  If  the  banks  have  lost  faith  in 
your  business  ability,  I  —  well,  I  should  consider  you 
a  bad  risk,  Horace.    I  can't  afford  to  gamble." 

"You  never  do.     You  only  play  cinches,"    Gower 


EN  FAMILLE  209 

grunted.  "  However,  your  money  will  be  safe  enough. 
I  did  n't  say  the  banks  refuse  me  credit.  I  have  excel- 
lent reasons  for  borrowing  of  you." 

"  I  really  do  not  see  how  I  can  possibly  let  you  have 
such  a  sum,"  she  said.  "You  already  have  twenty 
thousand  dollars  of  my  money  tied  up  in  your  busi- 
ness, you  know." 

"  You  have  an  income  of  twelve  thousand  a  year  from 
the  Maple  Point  place,"  Gower  recited  in  that  un- 
changing, even  tone.  "  You  have  over  twenty  thou- 
sand cash  on  deposit.  And  you  have  eighty  thousand 
dollars  in  Victory  Bonds.  You  mean  you  don't  want 
to,  Bessie." 

"  You  may  accept  that  as  my  meaning,"  she  returned. 

*'  There  are  times  in  every  man's  career,"  Gower 
remarked  dispassionately,  "when  the  lack  of  a  little 
money  might  break  him." 

"  That  is  all  the  more  reason  why  I  should  safeguard 
my  funds,"  Mrs.  Gower  replied.  "You  are  not  as 
young  as  you  were,  Horace.  If  you  should  fail  now, 
you  would  likely  never  get  on  your  feet  again.  But  we 
could  manage,  I  dare  say,  on  what  I  have.  That  is  why 
I  do  not  care  to  risk  any  of  it." 

"You  refuse  then,  absolutely,  to  let  me  have  this 
money  ?  "   he  asked. 

"I  do,"  Mrs.  Gower  replied,  with  an  air  of  pained 
but  conscious  rectitude.  "I  should  consider  myself 
most  unwise  to  do  so." 

"All  right,"  Gower  returned  indifferently.  "You 
force  me  to  a  showdown.  I  have  poured  money  into 
your  hands  for  years  for  you  to  squander  in  keeping  up 
your  position  —  as  you  call  it.  I'm  about  through 
doing  that.  I  'm  sick  of  aping  millionaires.  All  I  need 
is  a  comfortable  place  where  I  can  smoke  a  pipe  in 


210  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

peace.  This  house  is  mine.  I  shall  sell  it  and  repay 
you  your  twenty  thousand.     You  —  " 

"Horace!     Sell  this  house.     Our  home!     Horace.''^ 

"Our  home?"  Gower  continued  inflexibly.  "The 
place  where  we  eat  and  sleep  and  entertain,  you  mean. 
We  never  had  a  home,  Bessie.  You  will  have  your  an- 
cestral hall  at  Maple  Point.  You  will  be  quite  able  to 
afford  a  Vancouver  house  if  you  choose.  But  this  is 
mine,  and  it 's  going  into  the  discard.  I  shall  owe  you 
nothing.  I  shall  still  have  the  cottage  at  Cradle  Bay, 
if  I  go  smash,  and  that  is  quite  good  enough  for  me. 
Do  I  make  myself  clear?  " 

Mrs.  Gower  was  sniffing.  She  had  taken  refuge  with 
the  pince-nez  and  the  polishing  cloth.  But  her  fingers 
were  tremulous,  and  her  expression  was  that  of  a 
woman  who  feels  herself  sadly  abused  and  who  is  about 
to  indulge  in  luxurious  weeping. 

"But,  Horace,  to  sell  this  house  over  my  head  — 
what  will  p— people  say  ?  " 

"I  don't  care  two  whoops  what  people  say,"  Mr. 
Gower  replied  unfeelingly. 

"  This  is  simp-ply  outrageous  !  How  is  Betty  going 
to  m— meet  p— people?" 

"You  mean,"  her  husband  retorted,  "how  are  you 
going  to  contrive  the  proper  background  against 
which  Betty  shall  display  her  charms  to  the  different 
varieties  of  saphead  which  you  hit  upon  as  being  eligi- 
ble to  marry  her?  Don't  worry.  With  the  carefully 
conserved  means  at  your  disposal  you  will  still  be  able 
to  maintain  yourself  in  the  station  in  which  it  has 
pleased  God  to  place  you.  You  will  be  able  to  see  that 
Betty  has  the  proper  advantages." 

This  straw  broke  the  camel's  back,  if  it  is  proper  so 
to  speak  of  a  middle-aged,  delicate- featured  lady,  de- 


EN  FAMILLE  211 

liglitfully  gowned  and  coiifed  and  manicured.  Mrs. 
Gower's  grief  waxed  crescendo.  Whereupon  her  hus- 
band, with  no  manifest  change  of  expression  beyond 
an  unpleasant  narrowing  of  his  eyes,  heaved  his  short, 
flesh-burdened  body  out  of  the  chair  and  left  the  room. 

Betty  had  sat  silent  through  this  conversation,  a 
look  of  profound  distaste  slowly  gathering  on  her 
fresh  young  face.  She  gazed  after  her  father.  When 
the  door  closed  upon  him  Betty's  gray  eyes  came  to  rest 
on  her  mother's  bowed  head  and  shaking  shoulders. 
There  was  nothing  in  Betty  Gower's  expression  which 
remotely  suggested  sympathy.  She  said  nothing.  She 
leaned  her  elbows  on  the  table  and  rested  her  pretty 
chin  in  her  cupped  palms. 

Mrs.  Gower  presently  became  aware  of  this  detached, 
observing,  almost  critical  attitude. 

"  Your  f-f ather  is  p— positively  b-brutal,"  she  found 
voice  to  declare. 

"  There  are  various  sorts  of  brutality,"  Betty  ob- 
served enigmatically.  "  I  don't  think  daddy  has  a  cor- 
ner on  the  visible  supply.  Are  you  going  to  let  him 
have  that  money  ?  " 

"  No.    Never,"  Mrs.  Gower  snapped. 

"You  may  lose  a  great  deal  more  than  the  house  by 
that,"  Betty  murmured. 

But  if  Mrs.  Gower  heard  the  words  they  conveyed  no 
meaning  to  her  agitated  mind.  She  was  rapidly  ap- 
proaching that  incomprehensible  state  in  which  a  woman 
laughs  and  cries  in  the  same  breath,  and  Betty  got  up 
with  a  faintly  contemptuous  curl  to  her  red  lips.  She 
went  out  into  the  hall  and  pressed  a  button.  A  maid 
materialized. 

*'Go  into  the  dining  room  and  attend  to  mamma,  if 
you  please,  Mary,"  Betty  said. 


212  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

Then  she  skipped  nimbly  upstairs,  two  steps  at  a 
time,  and  went  into  a  room  on  the  second  floor,  a  room 
furnished  something  after  the  fashion  of  a  library  in 
which  her  father  sat  in  a  big  leather  chair  chewing  on 
an  unlighted  cigar. 

Betty  perched  on  the  arm  of  his  chair  and  ran  her 
fingers  through  a  patch  on  top  of  his  head  where  the 
hair  was  growing  a  bit  thin. 

"Daddy,"  she  asked,  "did  you  mean  that  about 
going  smash?" 

"  Possibility,"  he  grunted. 

"Are  you  really  going  to  sell  this  house  and  live  at 
Cradle  Bay?" 

"Sure.     You  sorry?" 

"About  the  house?  Oh,  no.  It's  only  a  place  for 
mamma  to  make  a  splash,  as  Norman  said.  If  you 
hibernate  at  the  cottage  I  '11  come  and  keep  house  for 
you." 

Gower  considered  this. 

"You  ought  to  stay  with  your  mother,"  he  said 
finally.  "  She  '11  be  able  to  give  you  a  lot  I  would  n't 
make  an  effort  to  provide.  You  don't  know  what  it 
means  really  to  work.  You  'd  find  it  pretty  slow  at 
Squitty." 

"  Maybe,"  Betty  said.  "  But  we  managed  very  well 
last  winter,  just  you  and  me.  If  there  is  going  to  be 
a  break-up  of  the  family  I  shall  stay  with  you.  I  'm  a 
daddy's  girl." 

Gower  drew  her  face  down  and  kissed  it. 

**  You  are  that,"  he  said  huskily.  "  You  're  all 
Gower.  There  's  real  stuff  in  you.  You  're  free  of  that 
damned  wishy-washy  Morton  blood.  She  made  a  poodle 
dog  of  Norman,  but  she  couldn't  spoil  you.  We'll 
manage,  eh,  Betty  ?  " 


EN  FAMILLE  213 

"Of  course,"  Betty  returned.  "But  I  don't  know 
that  Norman  is  such  a  hopeless  case.  Did  n't  he  rather 
take  your  breath  away  with  his  declaration  of  inde- 
pendence?" 

"It  takes  more  than  aJ  declaration  to  win  inde- 
pendence," Gower  answered  grimly.  "  Wait  till  the 
going  gets  hard.  However,  I  '11  say  there 's  a  chance 
for  Norman.  Now,  you  run  along,  Betty.  I've  got 
some  figuring  to  do." 


CHAPTER   XVII 

,      Business  as  Usual 

Late  in  March  Jack  MacRae  came  down  to  Vancouver 
and  quartered  himself  at  the  Granada  again.  He  liked 
the  quiet  luxury  of  that  great  hostelry.  It  was  a 
trifle  expensive,  but  he  was  not  inclined  to  worry  about 
expense.  At  home,  or  aboard  his  carriers  in  the  season, 
living  was  a  negligible  item.  He  found  a  good  deal 
of  pleasure  in  swinging  from  one  extreme  to  the  other. 
Besides,  a  man  stalking  big  game  does  not  arm  himself 
with  a  broomstick. 

He  had  not  come  to  town  solely  for  his  pleasure, 
although  he  was  not  disposed  to  shy  from  any  diver- 
sion that  offered.  He  had  business  in  hand,  business 
of  prime  importance  since  it  involved  spending  a  little 
matter  of  twelve  thousand  dollars.  In  brief,  he  had  to 
replace  the  BlacJahird,  and  he  was  replacing  her  with 
a  carrier  of  double  the  capacity,  of  greater  speed, 
equipped  with  special  features  of  his  own  choosing.  The 
new  boat  was  designed  to  carry  ten  thousand  salmon. 
There  was  installed  in  her  holds  an  ammonia  refrig- 
erating plant  which  would  free  him  from  the  labor  and 
expense  and  uncertainty  of  crushed  ice.  Science  bent 
to  the  service  of  money-making.  MacRae  grinned  to 
himself  when  he  surveyed  the  coiled  pipes,  the  pumping 
engine.  His  new  boat  was  a  floating,  self-contained 
cold-storage  plant.  He  could  maintain  a  freezing  tem- 
perature so  long  as  he  wished  by  chemico-mechanical 


BUSINESS  AS  USUAL  215 

means.  That  meant  a  full  load  every  trip,  since  he 
could  follow  the  trollers  till  he  got  a  load,  if  it  took  a 
week,  and  his  salmon  would  still  be  fresh. 

He  wondered  why  this  had  not  been  done  before. 
Stubby  enlightened  him. 

"Partly  because  it's  a  costly  rig  to  install.  But 
mostly  because  salmon  and  ice  have  always  been  both 
cheap  and  plentiful,  and  people  have  got  into  a  habit 
of  doing  things  in  the  same  old  way.  You  know.  Until 
the  last  season  or  two  salmon  have  been  so  cheap  that 
neither  canneries  nor  buyers  bothered  about  anything 
so  up-to-date.  If  they  lost  their  ice  in  hot  weather  and 
the  fish  rotted  —  why,  there  were  plenty  more  fish. 
There  have  been  times  when  the  Fraser  River  stunk 
with  rotten  salmon.  They  used  to  pay  the  fishermen 
ten  cents  apiece  for  six-pound  sockeyes  and  limit  them 
to  two  hundred  fish  to  the  boat  if  there  was  a  big  run. 
The  giU-netter  would  take  five  hundred  in  one  drift, 
come  in  to  the  cannery  loaded  to  the  guards,  find  him- 
self up  against  a  limit.  He  would  sell  the  two  hundred 
and  dump  more  than  that  overboard.  And  the  Eraser 
River  canneries  wonder  why  sockeye  is  getting  scarce. 
My  father  used  to  rave  about  the  waste.  Criminal,  he 
used  to  say." 

"When  the  fishermen  were  getting  only  ten  cents 
apiece  for  sockeyes,  salmon  was  selling  at  fifteen  cents 
a  pound  tin,"  MacRae  observed. 

"  Oh,  the  canneries  made  barrels  of  money."  Stubby] 
shrugged  his  shoulders.  "They  thought  the  salmon 
would  always  run  in  millions,  no  matter  how  many 
they  destroyed.     Some  of  'em  think  so  yet." 

"We're  a  nation  of  wasters,  compared  to  Europe," 
MacRae  said  thoughtfully.  "The  only  thing  they  are 
prodigal  with  over   there   is   human  flesh   and   blood. 


2i6  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

That  is  cheap  and  plentiful.  But  they  take  care  of 
their  natural  resources.  We  destroy  as  much  as  we 
use,  fish,  timber  —  everything.  Everybody  for  himself 
and  the  devil  take  the  hindmost." 

"Well,  I  don't  know  what  we  can  do  about  it," 
Stubby  drawled. 

"  Keep  from  being  the  hindmost,"  MacRae  answered. 
"  But  I  sometimes  feel  sorry  for  those  who  are." 

"Man,"  Stubby  observed,  "is  a  predatory  animal. 
You  can't  make  anything  else  of  him.  Nobody  develops 
philanthropy  and  the  public  spirit  until  he  gets  rich 
and  respectable.  Social  service  is  nothing  but  a  theory 
yet.     God  only  helps  those  who  help  themselves." 

"How  does  he  arrange  it  for  those  who  canH  help 
themselves  ?  "  MacRae  inquired. 

Stubby  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  Search  me,"  he  said. 

"Do  you  even  believe  in  this  anthropomorphic  God 
of  the  preachers  ?  "  MacRae  asked  curiously. 

"Well,  there  must  be  something,  don't  you  think.?" 
Stubby  hedged. 

"  There  may  be,"  MacRae  pursued  the  thought.  "  I 
read  a  book  by  Wells  not  long  ago  in  which  he  speaks 
of  God  as  the  Great  Experimenter.  If  there  is  an  all- 
powerful  Deity,  it  strikes  me  that  in  his  attitude  toward 
humanity  he  is  a  good  deal  like  a  referee  at  a  football 
game  who  would  say  to  the  teams,  '  Here  is  the  ball 
and  the  field  and  the  two  goals.  Go  to  it,'  and  then 
goes  off  to  the  side  lines  to  smoke  his  pipe  while  the 
players  foul  and  gouge  and  trip  and  generally  run 
amuck  in  a  frenzied  effort  to  win  the  game." 

"  You  're  a  pessimist,"  Stubby  declared. 

"What  is  a  pessimist.?"   MacRae  demanded. 

But  Stubby  changed  the  subject.     He  was  not  con- 


^-'fA. 


BUSINESS  AS  USUAL  217 

cemed  with  abstractions.  And  he  was  vitally  concerned 
with  the  material  factors  of  his  everyday  life,  believing 
that  he  was  able  to  dominate  those  material  factors 
and  bend  them  to  his  will  if  only  he  were  clever  enough 
and  energetic  enough. 

Stubby  wanted  to  get  in  on  the  blueback  salmon 
run  again.  He  had  put  a  big  pack  through  Crow  Har- 
bor and  got  a  big  price  for  the  pack.  In  a  period  of 
mounting  prices  canned  salmon  was  still  ascending. 
Food  in  any  imperishable,  easily  transported  form  was 
sure  of  a  market  in  Europe.  There  was  a  promise  of 
even  bigger  returns  for  Pacific  salmon  packers  in  the 
approaching  season.  But  Stubby  was  not  sure  enough 
yet  of  where  he  stood  to  make  any  definite  arrangement 
with  MacRae.  He  wanted  to  talk  things  over,  to  feel 
his  way. 

There  were  changes  in  the  air.  For  months  the  in- 
dustrial pot  had  been  spasmodically  boiling  over  in 
strikes,  lockouts,  boycotts,  charges  of  profiteering, 
loud  and  persistent  complaints  from  consumers,  organ- 
ized labor  and  rapidly  organizing  returned  soldiers. 
Among  other  things  the  salmon  packers'  monopoly  and 
the  large  profits  derived  therefrom  had  not  escaped 
attention. 

From  her  eight  millions  of  population  during  those 
years  of  war  effort  Canada  had  withdrawn  over  six 
hundred  thousand  able-bodied  men.  Yet  the  wheels  of 
industry  turned  apace.  She  had  supplied  munitions, 
food  for  armies,  ships,  yet  her  people  had  been  fed  and 
clothed  and  housed,  —  all  their  needs  had  been  liberally 
supplied. 

And  in  a  year  these  men  had  come  back.  Not  all. 
There  were  close  on  to  two  hundred  thousand  to  be 
checked  off  the  lists.    There  was  the  lesser  army  of  the 


2i8  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

slightly  and  totally  disabled,  the  partially  digested  food 
of  the  war  machine.  But  there  were  still  a  quarter  of  a 
million  men  to  be  reabsorbed  into  a  civil  and  industrial 
life  which  had  managed  to  function  tolerably  well  with- 
out them. 

These  men,  for  the  most  part,  had  somehow  conceived 
the  idea  that  they  were  coming  back  to  a  better  world, 
a  world  purged  of  dross  by  the  bloody  sweat  of  the  war. 
And  they  found  it  pretty  much  the  same  old  world. 
They  had  been  uprooted.  They  found  it  a  little  difficult 
to  take  root  again.  They  found  living  costly,  good 
jobs  not  so  plentiful,  masters  as  exacting  as  they  had 
been  before.  The  Golden  Rule  was  no  more  a  common 
practice  than  it  had  ever  been.  Yet  the  country  was 
rich,  bursting  with  money.  Big  business  throve,  even 
while  it  howled  to  high  heaven  about  ruinous,  confisca- 
tory taxation. 

The  common  man  himself  lifted  up  his  voice  in  pro- 
test and  backed  his  protest  with  such  action  as  he  could 
take.  Besides  the  parent  body  of  the  Great  War  Veter- 
ans' Association  other  kindred  groups  of  men  who  had 
fought  on  both  sea  and  land  sprang  into  being.  The 
labor  organizations  were  strengthened  in  their  cam- 
paign for  shorter  hours  and  longer  pay  by  thousands 
of  their  own  members  returned,  all  semi-articulate,  all 
more  or  less  belligerent.  The  war  had  made  fighters 
of  them.  War  does  not  teach  men  sweet  reasonable- 
ness. They  said  to  themselves  and  to  each  other  that 
they  had  fought  the  greatest  war  in  the  world's  his- 
tory and  were  worse  off  than  they  were  before.  From 
coast  to  coast  society  was  infiltrated  with  men  who  wore 
a  small  bronze  button  in  the  left  lapel  of  their  coats, 
men  who  had  acquired  a  new  sense  of  their  relation  to 
society,  men  who  asked  embarrassing  questions  in  public 


BUSINESS  AS  USUAL  219 

meetings,  in  clubs,  in  legislative  assemblies,  in  Parlia- 
ment, and  who  demanded  answers  to  the  questions. 

British  Columbia  was  no  exception.  The  British 
Columbia  coast  fishermen  did  not  escape  the  influence  of 
this  general  unrest,  this  critical  inquiry.  Wealthy,  re- 
spectable, middle-aged  citizens  viewed  with  alarm  and 
denounced  pernicious  agitation.  The  common  man 
retorted  with  the  epithet  of  "  damned  profiteer "  and 
worse.  Army  scandals  were  aired.  Ancient  political 
graft  was  exhumed.  Strident  voices  arose  in  the  wilder- 
ness of  contention  crying  for  a  fresh  deal,  a  clean-up, 
a  new  dispensation. 

When  MacRae  first  began  to  run  bluebacks  there 
were  a  few  returned  soldiers  fishing  salmon,  men  like  the 
Ferrara  boys  who  had  been  fishermen  before  they  were 
soldiers,  who  returned  to  their  old  calling  when  they  put 
off  the  uniform.  Later,  through  the  season,  he  came 
across  other  men,  frankly  neophytes,  trying  their  hand 
at  a  vocation  which  at  least  held  the  lure  of  freedom 
from  a  weekly  pay  check  and  a  boss.  These  men  were 
not  slow  to  comprehend  the  cannery  grip  on  the  salmon 
grounds  and  the  salmon  fishermen.  They  chafed 
against  the  restrictions  which,  they  said,  put  them  at 
the  canneries'  mercy.  They  growled  about  the  swarms 
of  Japanese  who  could  get  privileges  denied  a  white 
man  because  the  Japs  catered  to  the  packers.  They 
swelled  with  their  voices  the  feeble  chorus  that  white 
fishermen  had  raised  long  before  the  war. 

All  of  this,  like  wavering  gusts  before  the  storm,  was 
informing  the  sentient  ears  of  politicians  who  governed 
by  grace  of  electoral  votes.  Soldiers,  who  had  been 
citizens  before  they  became  soldiers,  who  were  frankly 
critical  of  both  business  and  government,  won  in  by- 
elections.     In  the  British  Columbia  legislature  there 


220  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

was  a  major  from  an  Island  district  and  a  lieutenant 
from  North  Vancouver.  They  were  exponents  of  a 
new  deal,  enemies  of  the  profiteer  and  the  professional 
politician,  and  they  were  thorns  in  the  side  of  a  pro- 
vincial government  which  yearned  over  vested  rights  as 
a  mother  over  her  ailing  babe.  In  the  Dominion  capital 
it  was  much  the  same  as  elsewhere,  —  a  government 
which  had  grasped  office  on  a  win-the-war  platform 
found  its  grasp  wavering  over  the  knotty  problems  of 
peace. 

The  British  Columbia  salmon  fisheries  were  con- 
trolled by  the  Dominion,  through  a  department  political 
in  its  scope.  Whether  the  Macedonian  cry  penetrated 
through  bureaucratic  swaddlings,  whether  the  fact 
that  fishermen  had  votes  and  might  use  them  with  scant 
respect  for  personages  to  whom  votes  were  a  prerequi- 
site to  political  power,  may  remain  a  riddle.  But  about 
the  time  Jack  MacRae's  new  carrier  was  ready  to  take 
the  water,  there  came  a  shuffle  in  the  fishery  regulations 
which  fell  like  a  bomb  in  the  packers'  camp. 

The  ancient  cannery  monopoly  of  purse-seining 
rights  on  given  territory  was  broken  into  fine  large 
fragments.  The  rules  which  permitted  none  but  a  can- 
nery owner  to  hold  a  purse-seine  license  and  denied  all 
other  men  that  privilege  were  changed.  The  new  regu- 
lations provided  that  any  male  citizen  of  British  birth 
or  naturalization  could  fish  if  he  paid  the  license  fee. 
The  cannery  men  shouted  black  ruin,  —  but  they  girded 
up  their  loins  to  get  fish. 

MacRae  was  still  in  Vancouver  when  this  change  of 
policy  was  announced.  He  heard  the  roaring  of  the 
cannery  lions.  Their  spokesmen  filled  the  correspond- 
ence columns  of  the  daily  papers  with  their  views. 
MacRae  had  not  believed  such  changes   imminent   or 


BUSINESS  AS  USUAL  221 

even  possible.  But  taking  them  as  an  accomplished 
fact,  he  foresaw  strange  developments  in  the  salmon 
industry.  Until  now  the  packers  could  always  be  de- 
pended upon  to  stand  shoulder  to  shoulder  against  the 
fishermen  and  the  consumer,  to  dragoon  one  another  into 
the  line  of  a  general  policy.  The  American  buyers, 
questing  adventurously  from  over  the  line,  had  alone 
saved  the  individual  fisherman  from  eating  humbly 
out  of  the  British  Columbia  canner's  hand. 

The  fishermen  had  made  a  living,  such  as  it  was.  The 
cannery  men  had  dwelt  in  peace  and  amity  with  one  an- 
other. They  had  their  own  loosely  knit  organization, 
held  together  by  the  ties  of  financial  interest.  They  sat 
behind  mahogany  desks  and  set  the  price  of  salmon  to 
the  fishermen  and  very  largely  the  price  of  canned  fish 
to  the  consumer,  and  their  most  arduous  labor  had  been 
to  tot  up  the  comfortable  balance  after  each  season's 
operations.  All  this  pleasantness  was  to  be  done  away 
with,  they  mourned.  Every  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry  was 
to  be  turned  loose  on  the  salmon  with  deadly  gear  and 
greedy  intent  to  exterminate  a  valuable  species  of  fish 
and  wipe  out  a  thriving  industry.  The  salmon  would 
all  be  killed  off,  so  did  the  packers  cry.  What  few  small 
voices  arose,  suggesting  that  the  deadly  purse  seine  had 
never  been  considered  deadly  when  only  canneries  had 
been  permitted  to  use  such  gear  and  that  they  had  not 
worried  about  the  extermination  of  the  salmon  so  long 
as  they  did  the  exterminating  themselves  and  found  it 
highly  profitable,  —  these  few  voices,  alas,  arose  only 
in  minor  strains  and  were  for  the  most  part  drowned 
by  the  anvil  chorus  of  the  cannery  men. 

MacRae  observed,  listened,  read  the  papers,  and 
prophesied  to  himself  a  scramble.  But  he  did  not  see 
where  it  touched  him,  —  not  until  Robbin-Steele  Senior 


222  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

asked  him  to  come  to  his  office  in  the  Bond  Building 
one  afternoon. 

MacRae  faced  the  man  over  a  broad  table  in  an 
office  more  like  the  library  of  a  well-appointed  home 
than  a  place  of  calculated  profit-mongering.  Robbin- 
Steele,  Senior,  was  tall,  thin,  sixty  years  of  age,  sandy- 
haired,  with  a  high,  arched  nose.  His  eyes,  MacRae 
thought,  were  disagreeably  like  the  eyes  of  a  dead  fish, 
lusterless  and  sunken ;  a  cold  man  with  a  suave  manner 
seeking  his  own  advantage.  Robbin-Steele  was  a  Scotch- 
man of  tolerably  good  family  who  had  come  to  British 
Columbia  with  an  inherited  fortune  and  made  that 
fortune  grow  to  vast  proportions  in  the  salmon  trade. 
He  had  two  pretty  and  clever  daughters,  and  three  of 
his  sons  had  been  notable  fighters  overseas.  MacRae 
knew  them  all,  liked  them  well  enough.  But  he  had 
never  come  much  in  contact  with  the  head  of  the  family. 
What  he  had  seen  of  Robbin-Steele,  Senior,  gave  him 
the  impression  of  cold,  calculating  power. 

"  I  wonder,"  MacRae  heard  him  saying  after  a  brief 
exchange  of  courtesies,  "  if  we  could  make  an  arrange- 
ment with  you  to  deliver  all  the  salmon  you  can  get  this 
season  to  our  Fraser  River  plant." 

"  Possibly,"  MacRae  replied.  "  But  there  is  no  cer- 
tainty that  I  will  get  any  great  number  of  salmon." 

"  If  you  were  as  uncertain  as  that,"  Robbin-Steele  said 
idryly,  '*you  would  scarcely  be  putting  several  thou- 
sand dollars  into  an  elaborately  equipped  carrier.  We 
may  presume  that  you  intend  to  get  the  salmon  —  as 
you  did  last  year." 

"  You  seem  to  know  a  greal  deal  about  my  business," 
MacRae  observed. 

"  It  is  our  policy  to  know,  in  a  general  way,  what  goes 
on  in  the  salmon  industry,"  Robbin-Steele  assented. 


BUSINESS  AS  USUAL  223 

MacRae  waited  for  him  to  continue. 

"  You  have  a  good  deal  of  both  energy  and  ability," 
Robbin-Steele  went  on.  "It  is  obvious  that  you  have 
pretty  well  got  control  of  the  blueback  situation 
around  Squitty  Island.  You  must,  however,  have  an 
outlet  for  your  fish.  We  can  use  these  salmon  to  ad- 
vantage. On  what  basis  will  you  deliver  them  to  us  on 
the  Fraser  if  we  give  you  a  contract  guaranteeing  to 
accept  all  you  can  dehver.'' " 

"  Twenty  per  cent,  over  Folly  Bay  prices,"  MacRae 
answered  promptly. 

The  cannery  man  shook  his  head. 

"No.  We  can't  afford  to  boost  the  cost  of  salmon 
like  that.  It  '11  ruin  the  business,  which  is  in  a  bad 
enough  way  as  it  is.  The  more  you  pay  a  fisherman, 
the  more  he  wants.  We  must  keep  prices  down.  That 
is  to  your  interest,  too." 

"  No,"  MacRae  disagreed.  "  I  think  it  is  to  my 
interest  to  pay  the  fishermen  top  prices,  so  long  as  I 
make  a  profit  on  the  deal.  I  don't  want  the  earth  — 
only  a  moderate  share  of  it." 

"  Twenty  per  cent,  on  Folly  Bay  prices  is  too  uncer- 
tain a  basis."  Robbin-Steele  changed  his  tactics.  "  We 
can  send  our  own  carriers  there  to  buy  at  far  less 
cost." 

MacRae  smiled. 

"  You  can  send  your  carriers,"  he  drawled,  "  but 
I  doubt  if  you  would  get  many  fish.  I  don't  think  you 
quite  grasp  the  Squitty  situation." 

"Yes,  I  think  I  do,"  Robbin-Steele  returned. 
"Gower  had  things  pretty  much  his  own  way  until 
you  cut  in  on  his  grounds.  You  have  undoubtedly  se- 
cured quite  an  advantage  in  a  peculiar  manner,  and 
possibly  you  feel  secure  against  competition.    But  your 


224  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

hold  is  not  so  strong  as  Gower's  once  was.  Let  me  tell 
you,  your  hold  on  that  business  can  be  broken,  my 
young  friend." 

"Undoubtedly,"  MacRae  readily  admitted.  "But 
there  is  a  world-wide  demand  for  canned  salmon,  and 
I  have  not  suffered  for  a  market  —  even  when  influence 
was  used  last  season  to  close  the  home  market  against 
me,  on  Folly  Bay's  behalf.  And  I  am  quite  sure,  from 
what  I  have  seen  and  heard,  that  many  of  the  big  Brit- 
ish Columbia  packers  like  yourself  are  so  afraid  the 
labor  situation  will  get  out  of  hand  that  they  would 
shut  down  their  plants  rather  than  pay  fishermen  what 
they  could  afford  to  pay  if  they  would  be  content  with 
a  reasonable  profit.  So  I  am  not  at  all  afraid  of  you 
seducing  the  Squitty  troUers  with  high  prices." 

"You  are  laboring  under  the  common  error  about 
cannery  profits,"  Robbin-Steele  declared  pointedly. 
"  Considering  the  capital  invested,  the  total  of  the  pack, 
the  risk  and  uncertainty  of  the  business,  our  returns 
are  not  excessive." 

MacRae  smiled  amusedly. 

"  That  all  depends  on  what  you  regard  as  excessive. 
But  there  is  nothing  to  be  gained  by  an  argument  on 
that  subject.  Canning  salmon  is  a  highly  profitable 
business,  but  it  would  not  be  the  gold  mine  it  has  been 
if  canneries  had  n't  been  fostered  at  the  expense  of  the 
men  who  actually  catch  the  fish,  if  the  government 
had  n't  bestowed  upon  cannery  men  the  gift  of  a  stran- 
gle hold  on  the  salmon  grounds,  and  license  privileges 
that  gave  them  absolute  control.  I  have  n't  any  quarrel 
with  cannery  men  for  making  money.  You  only  amuse 
me  when  you  speak  of  doubtful  returns.  I  wish  I  could 
have  your  cinch  for  a  season  or  two." 

"You   shouldn't   have   any   quarrel  with  us.      You 


BUSINESS  AS  USUAL  225 

started  with  nothing  and  made  twenty  thousand  dol- 
lars in  a  single  season,"   Robbin-Steele  reminded. 

"  I  worked  like  a  dog.  I  took  chances.  And  I  was 
very  lucky,"  MacRae  agreed.  "I  did  make  a  lot  of 
money.  But  I  paid  the  fishermen  more  than  they  ever 
got  for  salmon  —  a  great  deal  more  than  they  would 
have  got  if  I  hadn't  broken  into  the  game.  Abbott 
made  money  on  the  salmon  I  delivered  him.  So  every- 
body was  satisfied,  except  Gower  —  who  perhaps  feels 
that  he  is  ordained  by  the  Almighty  to  get  cheap 
salmon." 

"You're  spoiling  those  men,"  Robbin-Steele  de- 
clared irritably..  "My  observation  of  that  class  of 
labor  is  that  the  more  money  they  get  the  less  they 
will  do  and  the  more  they  will  want.  You  can't  carry 
on  any  industry  on  that  basis.  But  that's  beside  the 
point.  We're  getting  away  from  the  question.  We 
want  you  to  deliver  those  fish  to  us,  if  you  can  do  so 
at  a  reasonable  price.  We  should  like  to  have  some  sort 
of  agreement,  so  that  we  may  know  what  to  expect." 

"I  can  deliver  the  fish,"  MacRae  asserted  confi- 
dently. "  But  I  don't  care  to  bind  myself  to  anything. 
Not  this  far  in  advance.    Wait  till  the  salmon  run." 

**  You  are  a  very  shrewd  young  man,  I  should  say." 
Robbin-Steele  paid  him  a  reluctant  compliment  and  let 
a  gleam  of  appreciation  flicker  in  his  dead-fish  eyes. 
"  I  imagine  you  will  get  on.  Come  and  see  me  when  you 
feel  like  considering  this  matter  seriously." 

MacRae  went  down  the  elevator  wondering  if  the 
gentleman's  agreement  among  the  packers  was  off,  if 
there  was  going  to  be  something  in  the  nature  of  com- 
petition among  them  for  the  salmon.  There  would  be 
a  few  more  gill-net  licenses  issued.  More  important, 
the  gill-netters  would  be  free  to  fish  where  they  chose, 


226  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

for  whosoever  paid  the  highest  price,  and  not  for  the 
cannery  which  controlled  their  license.  There  would 
be  scores  of  independent  purse  seiners.  Would  the 
packers  bid  against  one  another  for  the  catch?  It 
rather  seemed  to  MacRae  as  if  they  must.  They  could 
no  longer  sit  back  secure  in  the  knowledge  that  the  sal- 
mon from  a  given  area  must  come  straight  to  their 
waiting  cans.  And  British  Columbia  packers  had  al- 
ways dreaded  American  competition. 

Following  that,  MacRae  took  train  for  Bellingham. 
The  people  he  had  dealt  with  there  at  the  close  of  the 
last  season  had  dealt  fairly.  American  salmon  packers 
had  never  suffered  the  blight  of  a  monopoly.  They 
had  established  their  industry  in  legitimate  competition, 
without  governmental  favors.  They  did  not  care  how 
much  money  a  fisherman  made  so  long  as  he  caught  fish 
for  them  which  they  could  profitably  can. 

MacRae  had  no  contract  with  them.  He  did  not 
want  a  contract.  If  he  made  hard  and  fast  agreements 
with  any  one  it  would  be  with  Stubby  Abbott.  But  he 
did  want  to  fortify  himself  with  all  the  information 
he  could  get.  He  did  not  know  what  line  Folly  Bay 
would  take  when  the  season  opened.  He  was  not  sure 
what  shifts  might  occur  among  the  British  Columbia 
canneries.  If  such  a  thing  as  free  and  unlimited  com- 
petition for  salmon  took  place  he  might  need  more  than 
one  outlet  for  his  carriers.  MacRae  was  not  engaged 
in  a  hazardous  business  for  pastime.  He  had  an  ob- 
jective, and  this  objective  was  contingent  upon  making 
money. 

From  the  American  source  he  learned  that  a  good 
season  was  anticipated  for  the  better  grades  of  salmon. 
He  found  out  what  prices  he  could  expect.  They  were 
liberal  enough  to  increase  his  confidence.     These  men 


BUSINESS  AS  USUAL  227 

were  anxious  to  get  the  thousands  of  British  Columbia 
salmon  MacRae  could  supply. 

MacRae  returned  to  Vancouver.  Before  he  had 
finished  unpacking  his  bag  the  telephone  rang.  Hurley, 
of  the  Northwest  Cold  Storage,  spoke  when  he  took 
down  the  receiver.  Could  he  drop  into  the  Northwest 
office.'^  MacRae  grinned  to  himself  and  went  down  to 
the  grimy  wharf  where  deep-sea  halibut  schooners 
rubbed  against  the  dock,  their  stubby  top-hamper 
swaying  under  the  office  windows  as  they  rocked  to 
the  swell  of  passing  harbor  craft. 

He  talked  with  Hurley,  —  the  same  gentleman  whom 
he  had  once  approached  with  no  success  in  the  matter 
of  selling  salmon.  The  situation  was  reversed  now.  The 
Northwest  was  eager  to  buy.  They  would  pay  him, 
sub  rosa,  two  cents  a  pound  over  the  market  price  for 
fresh  salmon  if  he  would  supply  them  with  the  largest 
possible  quantity  from  the  beginning  of  the  blueback 
run. 

As  with  Robbin-Steele,  MacRae  refused  to  commit 
himself.  More  clearly  he  perceived  that  the  scramble 
was  beginning.  The  packers  and  the  cold-storage 
companies  had  lost  control.  They  must  have  fish  to 
function,  to  make  a  profit.  They  would  cut  one  an- 
other's throats  for  salmon.  So  much  the  better,  Mac- 
Rae cynically  reflected.  He  told  Hurley,  at  last,  as  he 
had  told  Robbin-Steele,  to  wait  till  the  salmon  began  to 
run. 

He  left  the  Northwest  offices  with  the  firm  conviction 
that  it  was  not  going  to  be  a  question  of  markets,  but 
a  question  of  getting  the  salmon.  And  he  rather  fancied 
he  could  do  that. 

Last  of  all  on  the  list  of  these  men  who  approached 
him  in  this  fashion  came  Stubby  Abbott.     Stubby  did 


228  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

not  ask  him  to  call.  He  came  to  the  Granada  in  search 
of  Jack  and  haled  him,  nothing  loth,  out  to  the  stone 
house  in  the  West  End.  It  happened  that  Betty  Gower, 
Etta  Robbin-Steele,  and  two  gilded  youths,  whom  Mac- 
Rae  did  not  know,  were  there.  They  had  been  walk- 
ing in  the  Park.  Nelly  and  her  mother  were  serving 
tea. 

It  happened,  too,  that  as  they  chatted  over  the  tea- 
cups, a  blue-bodied  limousine  drew  up  under  the  Abbott 
pergola  and  deposited  Mrs.  Horace  A.  Gower  for  a 
brief  conversation  with  Mrs.  Abbott.  It  was  MacRae's 
first  really  close  contact  with  the  slender,  wonderfully 
preserved  lady  whose  life  had  touched  his  father's  so 
closely  in  the  misty  long  ago.  He  regarded  her  with 
a  reflective  interest.  She  must  have  been  very  beautiful 
then,  he  thought.  She  was  almost  beautiful  still.  Cer- 
tainly she  was  a  very  distinguished  person,  with  her 
costly  clothing,  her  rich  furs,  her  white  hair,  and  that 
faded  rose-leaf  skin.  The  petulant,  querulous  droop 
of  her  mouth  escaped  MacRae.  He  was  not  a  physiog- 
nomist. But  the  distance  of  her  manner  did  not  escape 
him.  She  acknowledged  the  introduction  and  thereafter 
politely  overlooked  MacRae.  He  meant  nothing  at  all 
to  Mrs.  Horace  A.  Gower,  he  saw  very  clearly.  Merely 
a  young  man  among  other  young  men;  a  young  man 
of  no  particular  interest.  Thirty  years  is  a  long  time, 
MacRae  reflected.  But  his  father  had  not  forgotten. 
He  wondered  if  she  had;  if  those  far-off  hot-blooded 
days  had  grown  dim  and  unreal  to  her? 

He  turned  his  head  once  and  caught  Betty  as  intent 
upon  him  as  he  was  upon  her  mother,  under  cover  of 
the  general  conversation.  He  gathered  that  there  was 
a  shade  of  reproach,  of  resentment,  in  her  eyes.  But 
he  could  not  be  sure.     Certainly  there  was  nothing  like 


BUSINESS  AS  USUAL  229 

that  in  her  manner.  But  the  manner  of  these  people, 
he  understood  very  well,  was  pretty  much  a  mask. 
Whatever  went  on  in  their  secret  bosoms,  they  smiled 
and  joked  and  were  unfailingly  courteous. 

He  made  another  discovery  within  a  few  minutes. 
Stubby  maneuvered  himself  close  to  Etta  Robbin-Steele. 
Stubby  was  not  quite  so  adept  at  repression  as  most 
of  his  class.  He  was  a  little  more  naive,  more  prone 
to  act  upon  his  natural,  instinctive  impulses.  MacRae 
was  aware  of  that.  He  saw  now  a  swift  by-play  that 
escaped  the  rest.  Nothing  of  any  consequence,  —  a 
look,  the  motion  of  a  hand,  a  fleeting  something  on  the 
girl's  face  and  Stubby's.  Jack  glanced  at  Nelly  Abbott 
sitting  beside  him,  her  small  blonde  head  pertly  in- 
clined.    Nelly  saw  it  too.     She  smiled  knowingly. 

"Has  the  brunette  siren  hooked  Stubby?  "  MacRae 
inquired  in  a  discreet  undertone. 

"  I  think  so.  I  'm  not  sure.  Etta 's  such  an  outra- 
geous flirt,"  Nelly  said.  "  I  hope  not,  anyway.  I  'm 
afraid  I  can't  quite  appreciate  Etta  as  a  prospective 
sister-in-law." 

"No.?" 

"  She 's  catty  —  and  vain  as  a  peacock.  Stubby 
ought  to  marry  a  nice  sensible  girl  who  'd  mother  him," 
Nelly  observed  with  astonishing  conviction ;  "  like 
Betty,  for  instance." 

"  Oh,  you  seem  to  have  very  definite  ideas  on  that 
subject,"  MacRae  smiled.  He  did  not  commit  himself 
further.  But  he  resented  the  suggestion.  There  was 
also  an  amusing  phase  of  Nelly's  declaration  which  did 
not  escape  him,  —  the  pot  calling  the  kettle  black.  Etta 
Robbin-Steele  did  flirt.  She  had  dancing  black  eyes 
that  flung  a  challenge  to  men.  But  Nelly  herself  was 
no  shrinking  violet,  for  all  her  baby  face.     She  was  like 


230  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

an  elf.  Her  violet  eyes  were  capable  of  infinite  shades 
of  expression.  She,  herself,  had  a  way  of  appropriating 
men  who  pleased  her,  to  the  resentful  dismay  of  other 
young  women.  It  pleased  her  to  do  that  with  Jack 
MacRae  whenever  he  was  available.  And  until  Betty 
had  preempted  a  place  in  his  heart  without  even  try- 
ing, Jack  MacRae  had  been  quite  willing  to  let  his 
fancy  linger  romantically  on  Nelly  Abbott. 

As  it  was,  —  he  looked  across  the  room  at  Betty 
chatting  with  young  Lane.  What  a  damned  fool  he 
was,  — he,  MacRae!  All  his  wires  were  crossed.  If 
some  inescapable  human  need  urged  him  to  love,  how 
much  better  to  love  this  piquant  bit  of  femininity  be- 
side him?  But  he  couldn't  do  it.  It  wasn't  possible. 
All  the  old  rebellion  stirred  in  him.  The  locked  cham- 
bers of  his  mind  loosed  pictures  of  Squitty,  memories 
of  things  which  had  happened  there,  as  he  let  his  eyes 
drift  from  Betty,  whom  he  loved,  to  her  mother,  whom 
his  father  had  loved  and  lost.  She  had  made  his  father 
suffer  through  love.  Her  daughter  was  making  Donald 
MacRae's  son  suffer  likewise.  Again,  through  some 
fantastic  quirk  of  his  imagination,  the  stodgy  figure 
of  Horace  Gower  loomed  in  the  background,  shadowy 
and  sinister.  There  were  moments,  like  the  present, 
when  he  felt  hatred  of  the  man  concretely,  as  he  could 
feel  thirst  or  hunger. 

"  A  penny  for  your  thoughts,"   Nelly  bantered. 

"They'd  be  dear  at  half  the  price,"  MacRae  said, 
forcing  a  smile. 

He  was  glad  when  those  people  went  their  way. 
Nelly  put  on  a  coat  and  went  with  them.  Stubby 
drew  Jack  up  to  his  den. 

"I  have  bought  up  the  controlling  interest  in  the 
Terminal  Fish  Company  since  I  saw  you  last,"  Stubby 


BUSINESS  AS  USUAL  231 

began  abruptly.  "  I  'm  going  to  put  up  a  cold-storage 
plant  and  do  what  my  father  started  to  do  early  in  the 
war  —  give  people  cheaper  fish  for  food." 

"  Can  you  make  it  stick,"  MacRae  asked  curiously, 
''with  the  other  wholesalers  against  you.'*  Their  sys- 
tem seems  to  be  to  get  all  the  traffic  will  bear,  to  boost 
the  price  to  the  consumer  by  any  means  they  can  use. 
And  there  is  the  Packers'  Association.  They  are  not 
exactly  —  well,  favorable  to  cheap  retailing  of  fish. 
Everybody  seems  to  think  the  proper  caper  is  to  tack 
on  a  cent  or  two  a  pound  wherever  he  can." 

"I  know  I  can,"  Stubby  declared.  "The  pater 
would  have  succeeded  only  he  trusted  too  much  to  men 
who  didn't  see  it  his  way.  Look  at  Cunningham  — " 
Stubby  mentioned  a  fish  merchant  who  had  made  a 
resounding  splash  in  matters  piscatorial  for  a  year  or 
two,  and  then  faded,  along  with  his  great  cheap-fish 
markets,  into  oblivion — "he  made  it  go  like  a  house  afire 
until  he  saw  a  chance  to  make  a  quick  and  easy  clean-up 
by  sticking  people.  It  can  be  done,  all  right,  if  a  man 
will  be  satisfied  with  a  small  profit  on  a  big  turnover. 
I  know  it." 

MacRae  made  no  comment  on  that.  Stubby  was  full 
of  his  plan,  eager  to  talk  about  its  possibilities. 

"  I  wanted  to  do  it  last  year,"  he  said,  "  but  I 
could  n't.  I  had  to  play  the  old  game  —  make  a  bunch 
of  money  and  make  it  quick.  Between  you  and  Gower's 
pig-headedness,  and  the  rest  of  the  cannery  crowd 
letting  me  go  till  it  was  too  late  to  stop  me,  and  a 
climbing  market,  I  made  more  money  in  one  season 
than  I  thought  was  possible.  I  'm  going  to  use  that 
money  to  make  more  money  and  to  squash  some  of  these 
damned  fish  pirates.  I  tell  you  it's  jolly  awful.  We 
had  baked  cod  for  lunch  to-day.    That  fish  cost  twenty 


232  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

cents  a  pound.  Think  of  it !  When  the  fisherman  sells 
it  for  six  cents  within  fifty  miles  of  us.  No  wonder 
everybody  is  howling.  I  don't  know  anything  about 
other  lines  of  food  supply,  but  I  can  sure  put  my 
finger  on  a  bunch  of  fish  profiteers.  And  I  feel  like 
putting  my  foot  on  them.  Anyway,  I've  got  the  Ter- 
minal for  a  starter;  also  I  have  a  tweAty-five-year 
lease  on  the  water  frontage  there.  I  have  the  capital 
to  go  ahead  and  build  a  cold-storage  plant.  The  whole- 
sale crowd  can't  possibly  bother  me.  And  the  canneries 
are  going  to  have  their  hands  full  this  season  without 
mixing  into  a  scrap  over  local  prices  of  fresh  fish. 
You  've  heard  about  the  new  regulations  ?  " 

MacRae  nodded  assent. 

"  There 's  going  to  be  a  free-for-all,"  Stubby  chuck- 
led. "  There  '11  be  a  lot  of  independent  purse  seiners. 
If  the  canneries  don't  pay  good  prices  these  inde- 
pendent fishermen,  with  their  fast,  powerful  rigs,  will 
seine  the  salmon  under  the  packers'  noses  and  run 
their  catch  down  to  the  Puget  Sound  plants.  This 
is  no  time  for  the  British  Columbia  packers  to  get 
uppish.     Good-by,  four  hundred  per  cent." 

"They'll  wiggle  through  legislation  to  prevent  ex- 
port of  raw  salmon,"  MacRae  suggested ;  "  same  as 
they  have  on  the  sockeye." 

"No  chance.  They've  tried,  and  it  can't  be  done," 
Stubby  grinned.  "  There  are  n't  going  to  be  any  special 
privileges  for  British  Columbia  salmon  packers  any 
more.  I  know,  because  I  'm  on  the  inside.  The  fisher- 
men have  made  a  noise  that  disturbs  the  politicians,  I 
guess.  Another  thing,  there's  a  slack  in  the  demand 
for  all  but  the  best  grades  of  salmon.  But  the  number 
one  grades,  sockeye  and  blueback  and  coho,  are  short. 
So  that  a  cannery  man  with  an  efficient  plant  can  pay 


A  RENEWAL  OF  HOSTILITIES  249 

pains.  Between  Folly  Bay  and  the  swirling  tide  races 
off  the  desolate  head  of  Cape  Mudge  the  blueback  dis- 
appeared. But  at  Squitty  the  runs  held  constant. 
There  were  off  days,  but  the  fish  were  always  there. 
The  trollers  hung  at  the  south  end,  sheltering  at  night 
in  the  Cove,  huddled  rubstrake  to  rubstrake  and  bow  to 
stem,  so  many  were  they  in  that  little  space,  on  days 
when  the  southeaster  made  the  cliffs  shudder  under  the 
shock  of  breaking  seas.  If  fishing  slackened  for  a  day 
or  two  they  did  not  scatter  as  in  other  days.  There 
would  be  another  run  hard  on  the  heels  of  the  last.  And 
there  was. 

MacRae  ran  the  Blanco  into  Squitty  Cove  one  after- 
noon and  made  fast  alongside  the  Bliiehird  which  lay 
to  fore  and  aft  moorings  in  the  narrow  gut  of  the  Cove. 
The  Gulf  outside  was  speckled  with  trollers,  but  there 
were  many  at  anchor,  resting,  or  cooking  food. 

One  of  the  mustard  pots  was  there,  a  squat  fifty-foot 
carrier  painted  a  gaudy  yellow  —  the  Folly  Bay  house 
color  —  flying  a  yellow  flag  with  a  black  C  in  the  center. 
She  was  loading  fish  from  two  trollers,  one  lying  on 
each  side.     One  or  two  more  were  waiting,  edging  up. 

"  He  came  in  yesterday  afternoon  after  you  left," 
Vin  Ferrara  told  Jack.  "And  he  offered  forty-five 
cents.  Some  of  them  took  it.  To-day  he's  paying 
fifty  and  hinting  more  if  he  has  to." 

MacRae  laughed. 

"  We  '11  match  Gower's  price  till  he  boosts  us  out  of 
the  bidding,"  he  said.  "And  he  won't  make  much  on 
his  pack  if  he  does  that." 

"  Say,  Folly  Bay,"  Jack  called  across  to  the  mustard- 
pot  carrier,  "what  are  you  paying  for  bluebacks?  " 

The  skipper  took  his  eye  off  the  tallyman  counting 
in  fish. 


250  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

"Fifty  cents,"  he  answered  in  a  voice  that  echoed 
up  and  down  the  Cove. 

"  That  must  sound  good  to  the  fishermen,"  MacRae 
called  back  pleasantly.  "  Folly  Bay 's  getting  gener- 
ous in  its  declining  years." 

It  was  the  oif  period  between  tides.  There  were  forty 
boats  at  rest  in  the  Cove  and  more  coming  in.  The 
ripple  of  laughter  that  ran  over  the  fleet  was  plainly^ 
audible.  They  could  appreciate  that.  MacRae  sat 
down  on  the  Blanco's  after  cabin  and  lit  a  cigarette. 

"  Looks  like  they  mean  to  get  the  fish,"  Vin  hazarded. 
^'  Can  you  tilt  that  and  make  anything.?  " 

"Let  them  do  the  tilting,"  MacRae  answered.  "If 
the  fish  run  heavy  I  can  make  a  little,  even  if  prices  go 
higher.  If  he  boosts  them  to  seventy-five,  I  'd  have  to 
quit.  At  that  price  only  the  men  who  catch  the  fish  will 
make  anything.  I  really  don't  know  how  much  we  will 
be  able  to  pay  when  Crow  Harbor  opens  up." 

"We'll  have  some  fun  anyway."  Vin's  black  eyes 
sparkled. 

It  took  MacRae  three  days  to  get  a  load.  Human 
nature  functions  pretty  much  the  same  among  all  men. 
The  trollers  distrusted  Folly  Bay.  They  said  to  one 
another  that  if  Gower  could  kill  off  competition  he 
would  cut  the  price  to  the  bone.  He  had  done  that 
before.  But  when  a  fisherman  rises  wearily  from  his 
bunk  at  three  in  the  morning  and  spends  the  bulk  of  the 
next  eighteen  hours  hauling  four  one  hundred  and  fifty 
foot  lines,  each  weighted  with  from  six  to  fifteen  pounds 
of  lead,  he  feels  that  he  is  entitled  to  every  cent  he  can 
secure  for  his  day's  labor. 

The  Gower  boats  got  fish.  The  mustard  pot  came 
I)ack  next  day,  paying  fifty-five  cents.  A  good  many 
trollers   sold  him  their   fish  before  they  learned  that 


A  RENEWAL  OF  HOSTILITIES  251 

MacRae  was  paying  the  same.  And  the  mustard  pot 
evidently  had  his  orders,  for  he  tilted  the  price  to  sixty, 
which  forced  MacRae  to  do  the  same. 

When  the  Blanco  unloaded  her  cargo  of  eight-thou- 
sand-odd salmon  into  the  Terminal  and  MacRae  checked 
his  receipts  and  expenditures  for  that  trip,  he  dis- 
covered that  he  had  neither  a  profit  nor  a  loss. 

He  went  to  see  Stubby,  explained  briefly  the  situa- 
tion. 

"  You  can't  get  any  more  cheap  salmon  for  cold  stor- 
age until  the  seiners  begin  to  take  coho,  that 's  certain," 
he  declared.  "  How  far  can  you  go  in  this  price  fight 
when  you  open  the  cannery?  " 

"Gower  appears  to  have  gone  a  bit  wild,  doesn't 
he?"  Stubby  ruminated.  "Let's  see.  Those  fish  are 
running  about  five  pounds  now.  They'll  get  a  bit 
heavier  as  we  go  along.  Well,  I  can  certainly  pack  as 
cheaply  as  he  can.  I  tell  you,  go  easy  for  a  week,  till 
I  get  Crow  Harbor  under  way.  Then  you  can  pay  up 
to  seventy-five  cents  and  I  '11  allow  you  five  cents  a  fish 
commission.  I  don't  believe  he'll  dare  pay  more  than 
that  before  late  in  July.  If  he  does,  why,  we  '11  see  what 
we  can  do." 

MacRae  went  back  to  Squitty.  He  could  make 
money  with  the  Blanco  on  a  five-cent  commission, — 
if  he  could  get  the  salmon  within  the  price  limit.  So  for 
the  next  trip  or  two  he  contented  himself  with  meeting 
Gower's  price  and  taking  what  fish  came  to  him.  The 
Folly  Bay  mustard  pots  —  three  of  them  great  and 
small  —  scurried  here  and  there  among  the  trollers, 
dividing  the  catch  with  the  Bluebird  and  the  Blanco, 
There  was  always  a  mustard-pot  collector  in  sight. 
The  weather  was  getting  hot.  Salmon  would  not  keep 
in  a  troller's  hold.     Part  of  the  old  guard  stuck  tight 


252  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

to  MacRae.  But  there  were  new  men  fishing ;  there  were 
Japanese  and  illiterate  Greeks.  It  was  not  to  be  ex- 
pected that  these  men  should  indulge  in  far-sighted 
calculations.  But  it  was  a  trifle  disappointing  to  see 
how  readily  any  troller  would  unload  his  catch  into  a 
mustard  pot  if  neither  of  MacRae's  carriers  happened 
to  be  at  hand. 

"  Why  don't  you  tie  up  your  boats,  Jack.?  "  Vin  asked 
angrily.  "You  know  what  would  happen.  Gower 
would  drop  the  price  with  a  bang.  You  'd  think  these 
damned  idiots  would  know  that.  Yet  they're  feeding 
him  fish  by  the  thousand.  They  don't  appear  to  care 
a  hoot  whether  you  get  any  or  not.  I  used  to  think 
fishermen  had  some  sense.  These  fellows  can't  see  an 
inch  past  their  cursed  noses.  Pull  off  your  boats  for  a 
couple  of  weeks  and  let  them  get  their  bumps." 

'•»  What  do  you  expect.?  "  MacRae  said  lightly.  "  It 's 
a  scramble,  and  they  are  acting  precisely  as  they  might 
be  expected  to  act.  I  don't  blame  them.  They're 
under  the  same  necessity  as  the  rest  of  us  —  to  get  it 
while  they  can.  Did  you  think  they'd  sell  me  fish  for 
sixty  if  somebody  else  offered  sixty-five.?  You  know 
how  big  a  nickel  looks  to  a  man  who  earns  it  as  hard  as 
these  fellows  do.'^ 

"No,  but  they  don't  seem  to  care  who  gets  their 
salmon,"  Vin  growled.  "Even  when  you're  paying 
the  same,  they  act  like  they'd  just  as  soon  Gower  got 
'em  as  you.  You  paid  more  than  Folly  Bay  all  last 
season.  You  put  all  kinds  of  money  in  their  pockets 
that  you  didn't  have  to." 

"  And  when  the  pinch  comes,  they  '11  remember  that," 
MacRae  said.  "  You  watch,  Vin.  The  season  is  young 
yet.  Gower  may  beat  me  at  this  game,  but  he  won't 
make  any  money  at  it.'* 


A  RENEWAL  OF  HOSTILITIES  253 

MacRae  kept  abreast  of  Folly  Bay  for  ten  days  and 
emerged  from  that  period  with  a  slight  loss,  because  at 
the  close  he  was  paying  more  than  the  salmon  were 
worth  at  the  Terminal  warehouse.  But  when  he  ran 
his  first  load  into  Crow  Harbor  Stubby  looked  over 
the  pile  of  salmon  his  men  were  forking  across  the  floor 
and  drew  Jack  into  his  office. 

"  I  've  made  a  contract  for  delivery  of  my  entire  sock- 
eye  and  blueback  pack,"  he  said.  "I  know  precisely 
where  I  stand.  I  can  pay  up  to  ninety  cents  for  all 
July  fish.  I  want  all  the  Squitty  bluebacks  you  can 
get.     Go  after  them.  Jack." 

And  MacRae  went  after  them.  Wherever  a  Folly 
Bay  collector  went  either  the  Blanco  or  the  Bluebird 
was  on  his  heels.  MacRae  could  cover  more  ground  and 
carry  more  cargo,  and  keep  it  fresh,  than  any  mustard 
pot.  The  Bluebird  covered  little  outlying  nooks,  the 
stragglers,  the  rowboat  men  in  their  beach  camps. 
The  Blanco  kept  mostly  in  touch  with  the  main  fleet 
patrolling  the  southeastern  end  of  Squitty  like  a  naval 
flotilla,  wheeling  and  counterwheeling  over  the  grounds 
where  the  blueback  played.  MacRae  forced  the  issue. 
He  raised  the  price  to  sixty-five,  to  seventy,  to  seventy- 
five,  to  eighty,  and  the  boats  under  the  yellow  house 
flag  had  to  pay  that  to  get  a  fish.  MacRae  crowded 
them  remorselessly  to  the  limit.  So  long  as  he  got  five 
cents  a  fish  he  could  make  money.  He  suspected  that 
it  cost  Gower  a  great  deal  more  than  five  cents  a  sal- 
mon to  collect  what  he  got.  And  he  did  not  get  so 
many  now.  With  the  opening  of  the  sockeye  season  on 
the  Fraser  and  in  the  north  the  Japs  abandoned  trol- 
ling for  the  gill  net.  The  white  troUers  returned  to 
their  first  love  because  he  courted  them  assiduously. 
There  was  always  a  MacRae  carrier  in  the  offing.     It 


254  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

cost  MacRae  his  sleep  and  rest,  but  he  drove  himself 
tirelessly.  He  could  leave  Squitty  at  dusk,  unload  his 
salmon  at  Crow  Harbor,  and  be  back  at  sunrise.  He 
did  it  many  a  time,  after  tallying  fish  all  day.  Three 
hours'  sleep  was  like  a  gift  from  the  gods.  But  he  kept 
it  up.     He  had  a  sense  of  some  approaching  crisis. 

By  the  third  week  in  July  MacRae  was  taking  three 
fourths  of  the  bluebacks  caught  between  the  Ballenas 
and  Folly  Bay.  He  would  lie  sometimes  within  a  stone's 
throw  of  Gower's  cannery,  loading  salmon. 

He  was  swinging  at  anchor  there  one  day  when  a 
rowboat  from  the  cannery  put  out  to  the  Blanco,  The 
man  in  it  told  MacRae  that  Gower  would  like  to  see  him. 
MacRae's  first  impulse  was  to  grin  and  ignore  the  re- 
quest. Then  he  changed  his  mind,  and  taking  his  own 
dinghy  rowed  ashore.  Some  time  or  other  he  would 
have  to  meet  his  father's  enemy,  face  him,  talk  to  him, 
listen  to  what  he  might  say,  tell  him  things.  Curiosity 
was  roused  in  him  a  little  now.  He  desired  to  know 
what  Gower  had  to  say.  He  wondered  if  (iower  was 
weakening;  what  he  could  want. 

He  found  Gower  in  a  cubby-hole  of  an  office  behind 
the  cannery  store. 

"  You  wanted  to  see  me,"  MacRae  said  curtly. 

He  was  in  sea  boots,  bareheaded.  His  shirt  sleeves 
were  rolled  above  sun-browned  forearms.  He  stood 
before  Gower  with  his  hands  thrust  in  the  pockets  of 
duck  overalls  speckled  with  fish  scales,  smelling  of  sal- 
mon. Gower  stared  at  him  silently,  critically,  it  seemed 
to  MacRae,  for  a  matter  of  seconds. 

"  What 's  the  sense  in  our  cutting  each  other's  throats 
over  these  fish?"  Gower  asked  at  length.  "I've  been 
wanting  to  talk  to  you  for  quite  a  while.  Let 's  get 
together.     I ' — " 


A  RENEWAL  OF  HOSTILITIES  255 

MacRae's  temper  flared. 

"  If  that 's  what  you  want,"  he  said,  "  I  '11  see  you  in 
hell  first." 

He  turned  on  his  heel  and  walked  out  of  the  office. 
When  he  stepped  into  his  dinghy  he  glanced  up  at  the 
wharf  towering  twenty  feet  above  his  head.  Betty 
Gower  was  sitting  on  a  pile  head.  She  was  looking 
down  at  him.  But  she  was  not  smiling.  And  she  did 
not  speak.  MacRae  rowed  back  to  the  Blanco  in  an 
ugly  mood. 

In  the  next  forty-eight  hours  Folly  Bay  jumped  the 
price  of  bluebacks  to  ninety  cents,  to  ninety-five,  to  a 
dollar.  The  Blanco  wallowed  down  to  Crow  Harbor 
with  a  load  which  represented  to  MacRae  a  dead  loss  of 
four  hundred  dollars  cash. 

"He  must  be  crazy,"  Stubby  fumed.  "There's  no 
use  canning  salmon  at  a  loss." 

"Has  he  reached  the  loss  point  yet.'"'  MacRae  in- 
quired. 

"  He 's  shaving  close.  No  cannery  can  make  any- 
thing worth  reckoning  at  a  dollar  or  so  a  case  profit." 

"Is  ninety  cents  and  five  cents'  commission  your 
limit?  "   MacRae  demanded. 

"Just  about,"  Stubby  grunted.  "Well"  — reluc- 
tantly—  "I  can  stand  a  dollar.  That's  the  utmost 
limit,  though.     I  can't  go  any  further." 

"  And  if  he  gets  them  all  at  a  dollar  or  more,  he  '11  be 
canning  at  a  dead  loss,  eh.'^" 

"He  certainly  will,"  Stubby  declared.  "Unless  he 
cans  'em  heads,  tails,  and  scales,  and  gets  a  bigger  price 
per  case  than  has  been  offered  yet." 

MacRae  went  back  to  Squitty  with  a  definite  idea 
in  his  mind.  Gower  had  determined  to  have  the  salmon. 
Very  well,  then,  he  should  have  them.     But  he  would 


256  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

have  to  take  them  at  a  loss,  in  so  far  as  MacRae  could 
inflict  loss  upon  him.  He  knew  of  no  other  way  to 
hurt  effectively  such  a  man  as  Gower.  Money  was 
life  blood  to  him,  and  it  was  not  of  great  value  to 
MacRae  as  yet.  With  deliberate  calculation  he  de- 
cided to  lose  the  greater  part  of  what  he  had  made,  if 
for  every  dollar  he  lost  himself  he  could  inflict  equal  or 
greater  loss  on  Gower. 

The  trollers  who  combed  the  Squitty  waters  were 
taking  now  close  to  five  thousand  salmon  a  day.  Ap- 
proximately half  of  these  went  to  Folly  Bay.  MacRae 
took  the  rest.  In  this  battle  of  giants  the  fishermen 
had  lost  sight  of  the  outcome.  They  ceased  to  care 
who  got  fish.  They  only  watched  eagerly  for  him  who 
paid  the  biggest  price.  They  were  making  thirty, 
forty,  fifty  dollars  a  day.  They  no  longer  held  sal- 
mon—  only  a  few  of  the  old-timers  —  for  MacRae's 
carriers.  It  was  nothing  to  them  who  made  a  profit  or 
suffered  a  loss.  Only  a  few  of  the  older  men  wondered 
privately  how  long  MacRae  could  stand  it  and  what 
would  happen  when  he  gave  up. 

MacRae  met  every  raise  Folly  Bay  made.  He  saw 
bluebacks  go  to  a  dollar  ten,  then  to  a  dollar  fifteen. 
He  ran  cargo  after  cargo  to  Crow  Harbor  and  dropped 
from  three  to  seven  hundred  dollars  on  each  load,  until 
even  Stubby  lost  patience  with  him. 

"  What 's  the  sense  in  bucking  him  till  you  go  broke  ? 
I  'm  in  too  deep  to  stand  any  loss  myself.  Quit.  Tie 
up  your  boats.  Jack.  Let  him  have  the  salmon.  Let 
those  blockheads  of  fishermen  see  what  he  '11  do  to  'em 
once  you  stop." 

But  MacRae  held  on  till  the  first  hot  days  of  August 
were  at  hand  and  his  money  was  dwindling  to  the 
vanishing  point.    Then  he  ran  the  Blanco  and  the  Blue- 


A  RENEWAL  OF  HOSTILITIES  257 

bird  into  Squltty  Cove  and  tied  them  to  permanent 
moorings  in  shoal  water  near  the  head.  For  a  day  or 
two  the  salmon  had  shifted  mysteriously  to  the  top  end, 
around  Folly  Bay  and  the  Siwash  Islands  and  Jenkins 
Pass.  The  bulk  of  the  fleet  had  followed  them.  Only 
a  few  stuck  to  the  Cove  and  Poor  Man's  Rock.  To 
these  and  the  rowboat  trollers  MacRae  said: 

"  Sell  your  fish  to  Folly  Bay.     I  'm  through." 

Then  he  lay  down  in  his  bunk  in  the  airy  pilot 
house  of  the  Blanco  and  slept  the  clock  around,  the  first 
decent  rest  he  had  taken  in  two  months.  He  had  not 
realized  till  then  how  tired  he  was. 

When  he  wakened  he  washed,  ate,  changed  his  clothes 
and  went  for  a  walk  along  the  cliffs  to  stretch  his  legs. 
Vin  had  gone  up  to  the  Knob  to  see  Dolly  and  Uncle 
Peter.  His  helper  on  the  Bluebird  was  tinkering  about 
his  engine.  MacRae's  two  men  loafed  on  the  clean- 
slushed  deck.  They  were  none  of  them  company  for 
MacRae  in  his  present  mood.  He  sought  the  cliffs  to 
be  alone. 

Gower  had  beaten  him,  it  would  seem.  And  MacRae 
did  not  take  kindly  to  being  beaten.  But  he  did  not 
think  this  was  the  end  yet.  Gower  would  do  as  he  had 
done  before.  When  he  felt  himself  secure  in  his  mo- 
nopoly he  would  squeeze  the  fishermen,  squeeze  them 
hard.  And  as  soon  as  he  did  that  MacRae  would  buy 
again.  He  could  not  make  any  money  himself,  perhaps. 
But  he  could  make  Gower  operate  at  a  loss.  That 
would  be  something  accomplished. 

MacRae  walked  along  the  cliffs  until  he  saw  the 
white  cottage,  and  saw  also  that  some  one  sat  on  the 
steps  in  the  sun.  Whereupon  he  turned  back.  He 
did  n't  want  to  see  Betty.  He  conceived  that  to  be  an 
ended  chapter  in  his  experiences.    He  had  hurt  her,  and 


258  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

she  had  put  on  her  armor  against  another  such  hurt. 
There  was  a  studied  indifference  about  her  now,  when 
he  met  her,  which  hurt  him  terribly.  He  supposed  that 
in  addition  to  his  own  incomprehensible  attitude  which 
she  resented,  she  took  sides  with  her  father  in  this  ob- 
vious commercial  warfare  which  was  bleeding  them  both 
financially.  Very  likely  she  saw  in  this  only  the  open 
workings  of  his  malice  toward  Gower.  In  which  Mac- 
Rae  admitted  she  would  be  quite  correct.  He  had  not 
been  able  to  discover  in  that  flaring-up  of  passion  for 
Betty  any  reason  for  a  burial  of  his  feud  with  Gower. 
There  was  in  him  some  curious  insistence  upon  carrying 
this  to  the  bitter  end.  And  his  hatred  of  Gower  was 
something  alive,  vital,  coloring  his  vision  somberly. 
The  shadow  of  the  man  lay  across  his  life.  He  could 
not  ignore  this,  and  his  instinct  was  for  reprisal.  The 
fighting  instinct  in  MacRae  lurked  always  very  near 
the  surface. 

He  spent  a  good  many  hours  during  the  next  three 
or  four  days  lying  in  the  shade  of  a  gnarly  arbutus 
which  gave  on  the  cliffs.  He  took  a  book  up  there  with 
him,  but  most  of  the  time  he  lay  staring  up  at  the  blue 
sky  through  the  leaves,  or  at  the  sea,  or  distant  shore 
lines,  thinking  always  in  circles  which  brought  him  de- 
spairingly out  where  he  went  in.  He  saw  a  mustard 
pot  slide  each  day  into  the  Cove  and  pass  on  about  its 
business.  There  was  not  a  great  deal  to  be  got  in  the 
Cove.  The  last  gas  boat  had  scuttled  away  to  the  top 
end,  where  the  blueback  were  schooling  in  vast  numbers. 
There  were  still  salmon  to  be  taken  about  Poor  Man's 
Rock.  The  rowboat  men  took  a  few  fish  each  day  and 
hoped  for  another  big  run. 

There  came  a  day  when  the  mustard  pot  failed  to 
show  in  the  Cove.    The  rowboat  men  had  three  hundred 


A  RENEWAL  OF  HOSTILITIES  259 

salmon,  and  they  cursed  Folly  Bay  with  a  fine  flow  of 
epithet  as  they  took  their  rotting  fish  outside  the  Cove 
and  dumped  them  in  the  sea.  Nor  did  a  Gower  col- 
lector come,  although  there  was  nothing  in  the  wind  or 
weather  to  stop  them.  The  rowboat  trollers  fumed  and 
stewed  and  took  their  troubles  to  Jack  MacRae.  But 
he  could  neither  inform  nor  help  them. 

Then  upon  an  evening  when  the  sun  rested  on  the 
serrated  backbone  of  Vancouver  Island,  a  fiery  ball 
against  a  sky  of  burnished  copper,  flinging  a  red  haze 
down  on  a  slow  swell  that  furrowed  the  Gulf,  Jack 
MacRae,  perched  on  a  mossy  boulder  midway  between 
the  Cove  and  Point  Old,  saw  first  one  boat  and  then 
another  come  slipping  and  lurching  around  Poor  Man's 
Rock.  Converted  Columbia  River  sailboats.  Cape  Flat- 
tery trollers,  double-enders,  all  the  variegated  craft 
that  fishermen  use  and  traffic  with,  each  rounded  the 
Rock  and  struck  his  course  for  the  Cove,  broadside  on 
to  the  rising  swell,  their  twenty-foot  trolling  poles 
lashed  aloft  against  a  stumpy  mast  and  swinging  in  a 
great  arc  as  they  rolled.  One,  ten,  a  dozen,  an  endless 
procession,  sometimes  three  abreast,  again  a  string  in 
single  file.  MacRae  was  reminded  of  the  march  of  the 
oysters  — 

"So  thick  and  fast  they  came  at  last. 
And  more  and  more  and  more." 

He  sat  watching  them  pass,  wondering  why  the  great 
trek.  The  trolling  fleet  normally  shifted  by  pairs  and 
dozens.  This  was  a  squadron  movement,  the  Grand 
Fleet  steaming  to  some  appointed  rendezvous.  MacRae 
watched  till  the  sun  dipped  behind  the  hills,  and  the 
reddish  tint  left  the  sea  to  linger  briefly  on  the  summit 
of  the  Coast  Range  flanking  the  mainland  shore.  The 
fish   boats   were   still   coming,    one   behind   the    other, 


26o  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

lurching  and  swinging  in  the  trough  of  the  sea,  rising 
and  falling,  with  wheeling  gulls  crying  above  them. 
On  each  deck  a  solitary  fisherman  humped  over  his 
steering  gear.  From  each  cleaving  stem  the  bow-wave 
curled  in  white  foam. 

There  was  something  in  the  wind.  MacRae  felt  it 
like  a  premonition.  He  left  his  boulder  and  hurried 
back  toward  the  Cove. 

The  trolling  boats  were  packed  about  the  Blanco  so 
close  that  MacRae  left  his  dinghy  on  the  outer  fringe 
and  walked  across  their  decks  to  the  deck  of  his  own 
vessel.  The  Blanco  loomed  in  the  midst  of  these  lesser 
craft  like  a  hen  over  her  brood  of  chicks.  The  fishermen 
had  gathered  on  the  nearest  boats.  A  dozen  had  clam- 
'bered  up  and  taken  seats  on  the  Blanco^s  low  bulwarks. 
MacRae  gained  his  own  deck  and  looked  at  them. 

"What's  coming  off?"  he  asked  quietly.  "You 
fellows  holding  a  convention  of  some  sort.^  " 

One  of  the  men  sitting  on  the  big  carrier's  rail  spoke. 

"Folly  Bay's  quit — shut  down,"  he  said  sheep- 
ishly.    "  We  come  to  see  if  you  'd  start  buying  again." 

MacRae  sat  down  on  one  sheave  of  his  deck  winch. 
He  took  out  a  cigarette  and  lighted  it,  swung  one  foot 
back  and  forth.  He  did  not  make  haste  to  reply.  An 
expectant  hush  fell  on  the  crowd.  In  the  slow-gathering 
dusk  there  was  no  sound  but  the  creak  of  rubbing  gun- 
wales, the  low  snore  of  the  sea  breaking  against  the 
cliffs,  and  the  chug-chug  of  the  last  stragglers  beating 
into  the  shelter  of  the  Cove. 

"  He  shut  down  the  cannery,"  the  fishermen's  spokes- 
man said  at  last.  "  We  ain't  seen  a  buyer  or  collector 
for  three  days.  The  water 's  full  of  salmon,  an'  we  been 
suckin'  our  thumbs  an'  watching  'em  play.  If  you  won't 
buy  here  again  we  got  to  go  where  there  is  buyers.    And 


A  RENEWAL  OF  HOSTILITIES  261 

we  'd  rather  not  do  that.  There 's  no  place  on  the  Gulf 
as  good  fishin'  as  there  is  here  now." 

"What  was  the  trouble.'"'  MacRae  asked  absently. 
"  Could  n't  you  supply  him  with  fish  ?  " 

"  Nobody  knows.  There  was  plenty  of  salmon.  He 
cut  the  price  the  day  after  you  tied  up.  He  cut  it  to 
six  bits.  Then  he  shut  down.  Anyway,  we  don't  care 
why  he  shut  down.  It  don't  make  no  difference.  What 
we  want  is  for  you  to  start  buyin'  again.  Hell,  we  're 
losin'  money  from  daylight  to  dark !  The  water 's  alive 
with  salmon.  An'  the  season 's  short.  Be  a  sport, 
MacRae." 

MacRae  laughed. 

"Be  a  sport,  eh?  "  he  echoed  with  a  trace  of  amuse- 
ment in  his  tone.  "I  wonder  how  many  of  you  would 
have  listened  to  me  if  I  'd  gone  around  to  you  a  week 
ago  and  asked  you  to  give  me  a  sporting  chance  ?  " 

No  one  answered.  MacRae  threw  away  his  half- 
smoked  cigarette.    He  stood  up. 

"  All  right,  I  '11  buy  salmon  again,"  he  said  quietly. 
"And  I  won't  ask  you  to  give  me  first  call  on  your 
catch  or  a  chance  to  make  up  some  of  the  money  I  lost 
bucking  Folly  Bay,  or  anything  like  that.  But  I  want 
to  tell  you  something.  You  know  it  as  well  as  I  do,  but 
I  want  to  jog  your  memory  with  it." 

He  raised  his  voice  a  trifle. 

"You  fellows  know  that  I've  always  given  you  a 
square  deal.  You  aren't  fishing  for  sport.  You're 
at  this  to  make  a  living,  to  make  money  if  you  can.  So 
am  I.  You  are  entitled  to  all  you  can  get.  You  earn 
it.  You  work  for  it.  So  am  I  entitled  to  what  I  can 
make.  I  work,  I  take  certain  chances.  Neither  of  us 
is  getting  something  for  nothing.  But  there  is  a  limit 
to  what  either  of  us  can  get.     We  can't  dodge  thaL 


262  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

You  fellows  have  been  dodging  it.  Now  you  have  to 
come  back  to  earth. 

"  No  fisherman  can  get  the  prices  you  have  had  lately. 
No  cannery  can  pack  salmon  at  those  prices.  Sockeye, 
the  finest  canning  salmon  that  swims  in  the  sea,  is 
bringing  eighty  cents  on  the  Fraser.  Bluebacks  are 
sixty-five  cents  at  Nanaimo,  sixty  at  Cape  Mudge, 
sixty  at  the  Euclataws. 

"I  can  do  a  little  better  than  that,"  MacRae  hesi- 
tated a  second.  "  I  can  pay  a  little  more,  because  the 
cannery  I'm  supplying  is  satisfied  with  a  little  less 
profit  than  most.  Stubby  Abbott  is  not  a  hog,  and 
neither  am  I.  I  can  pay  seventy-five  cents  and  make 
money.  I  have  told  you  before  that  it  is  to  your  inter- 
est as  well  as  mine  to  keep  me  running.  I  will  always 
pay  as  much  as  salmon  are  worth.  But  I  cannot  pay 
more.  If  your  appreciation  of  Folly  Bay's  past  kind- 
ness to  you  is  so  keen  that  you  would  rather  sell  him 
your  fish,  why,  that 's  your  privilege." 

"Aw,  that's  bunk,"  a  man  called.  "You  know 
blamed  well  we  wouldn't.  Not  after  him  blowin'  up 
like  this." 

"How  do  I  know.?"  MacRae  laughed.  "If  Gower 
opened  up  to-morrow  again  and  offered  eighty  or  ninety 
cents,  he  'd  get  the  salmon  —  even  if  you  knew  he  would 
make  you  take  thirty  once  he  got  you  where  he  wanted 
you." 

"Would  he.'^"  another  voice  uprose.  "The  next 
time  a  mustard  pot  gets  any  salmon  from  me,  it'll  be 
because  there's  no  other  buyer  and  no  other  grounds 
to  fish." 

A  growled  chorus  backed  this  reckless  statement. 

"That's  all  right,"  MacRae  said  good-naturedly. 
"  I  don't  blame  you  for  picking  up  easy  money.    Only 


A  RENEWAL  OF  HOSTILITIES  263 

easy  money  is  n't  always  so  good  as  it  looks.  Fly  at  it 
in  the  morning,  and  I  '11  take  the  fish  at  the  price  I  've 
said.  If  Folly  Bay  gets  into  the  game  again,  it's  up 
to  you." 

When  the  lights  were  doused  and  every  fisherman 
was  stretched  in  his  bunk,  falling  asleep  to  the  slow 
beat  of  a  dead  swell  breaking  in  the  Cove's  mouth,  Vin 
Ferrara  stood  up  to  seek  his  own  bed. 

"  I  wonder,"  he  said  to  Jack,  "  I  wonder  why  Gower 
shut  down  at  this  stage  of  the  game?" 

MacRae  shook  his  head.  He  was  wondering  that 
himself. 


CHAPTER   XIX 

Top  Dog 

Some  ten  days  later  the  Bluebird  swung  at  anchor  in 
the  kelp  just  clear  of  Poor  Man's  Rock.  From  a  speck 
on  the  horizon  the  Blanco  grew  to  full  shape,  flaring 
bow  and  pilot  house,  walking  up  the  Gulf  with  a  bone 
in  her  teeth.  She  bore  down  upon  her  consort,  sidled 
alongside  and  made  fast  with  lines  to  the  bitts  fore  and 
aft.  Vin  Ferrara  threw  back  his  hatch  covers,  ffis 
helper  forked  up  salmon  with  a  picaroon.  Vin  tossed 
them  across  into  the  Blanco's  hold.  At  the  same  time 
the  larger  carrier's  short,  stout  boom  swung  back  and 
forth,  dumping  into  the  Bluebird's  fish  pens  at  each 
trip  a  hundred  pounds  of  cracked  ice.  Presently  this 
work  was  done,  the  Bluebird's  salmon  transferred  to  the 
BlancOy  the  Bluebird's  pens  replenished  with  four  tons 
of  ice. 

Vin  checked  his  tabs  with  the  count  of  fish.  The 
other  men  slushed  decks  clean  with  buckets  of  sea 
water. 

"Twenty-seven  hundred,"  MacRae  said.  "Big 
morning.     Every  troUer  in  the  Gulf  must  be  here." 

"  No,  I  have  to  go  to  Folly  Bay  and  Siwash  Islands 
to-night,"  Vin  told  him.  "  There 's  about  twenty  boats 
working  there  and  at  Jenkins  Pass.  Salmon  every- 
where." 

They  sat  in  the  shade  of  the  Bla/nco's  pilot  house. 
The  sun  beat  mercilessly,  a  dog-day  sun  blazing  upon 


A  RENEWAL  OF  HOSTILITIES  249 

pains.  Between  Folly  Bay  and  the  swirling  tide  races 
off  the  desolate  head  of  Cape  Mudge  the  blueback  dis- 
appeared. But  at  Squitty  the  runs  held  constant. 
There  were  off  days,  but  the  fish  were  always  there. 
The  trollers  hung  at  the  south  end,  sheltering  at  night 
in  the  Cove,  huddled  rubstrake  to  rubstrake  and  bow  to 
stem,  so  many  were  they  in  that  little  space,  on  days 
when  the  southeaster  made  the  cliffs  shudder  under  the 
shock  of  breaking  seas.  If  fishing  slackened  for  a  day 
or  two  they  did  not  scatter  as  in  other  days.  There 
would  be  another  run  hard  on  the  heels  of  the  last.  And 
there  was. 

MacRae  ran  the  Blanco  into  Squitty  Cove  one  after- 
noon and  made  fast  alongside  the  Bluebird  which  lay 
to  fore  and  aft  moorings  in  the  narrow  gut  of  the  Cove. 
The  Gulf  outside  was  speckled  with  trollers,  but  there 
were  many  at  anchor,  resting,  or  cooking  food. 

One  of  the  mustard  pots  was  there,  a  squat  fifty-foot 
carrier  painted  a  gaudy  yellow  —  the  Folly  Bay  house 
color  —  flying  a  yellow  flag  with  a  black  C  in  the  center. 
She  was  loading  fish  from  two  trollers,  one  lying  on 
each  side.     One  or  two  more  were  waiting,  edging  up. 

"  He  came  in  yesterday  afternoon  after  you  left," 
Vin  Ferrara  told  Jack.  "And  he  offered  forty-five 
cents.  Some  of  them  took  it.  To-day  he's  paying 
fifty  and  hinting  more  if  he  has  to." 

MacRae  laughed. 

"  We  '11  match  Gower's  price  till  he  boosts  us  out  of 
the  bidding,"  he  said.  "And  he  won't  make  much  on 
his  pack  if  he  does  that." 

"  Say,  FoUy  Bay,"  Jack  called  across  to  the  mustard- 
pot  carrier,  "  what  are  you  paying  for  bluebacks  ?  " 

The  skipper  took  his  eye  off  the  tallyman  counting 
in  fish. 


250  POOR  MAN^S  ROCK 

"Fifty  cents,"  he  answered  in  a  voice  that  echoed 
up  and  down  the  Cove. 

"  That  must  sound  good  to  the  fishermen,"  MacRae 
called  back  pleasantly.  "  Folly  Bay  's  getting  gener- 
ous in  its  declining  years." 

It  was  the  off  period  between  tides.  There  were  forty 
boats  at  rest  in  the  Cove  and  more  coming  in.  The 
ripple  of  laughter  that  ran  over  the  fleet  was  plainly 
audible.  They  could  appreciate  that.  MacRae  sat 
down  on  the  Blanco's  after  cabin  and  lit  a  cigarette. 

"  Looks  like  they  mean  to  get  the  fish,"  Vin  hazarded. 
*'  Can  you  tilt  that  and  make  anything.?  " 

"Let  them  do  the  tilting,"  MacRae  answered.  "If 
the  fish  run  heavy  I  can  make  a  little,  even  if  prices  go 
higher.  If  he  boosts  them  to  seventy-five,  I  'd  have  to 
quit.  At  that  price  only  the  men  who  catch  the  fish  will 
make  anything.  I  really  don't  know  how  much  we  will 
be  able  to  pay  when  Crow  Harbor  opens  up." 

"We'll  have  some  fun  anyway."  Vin's  black  eyes 
sparkled. 

It  took  MacRae  three  days  to  get  a  load.  Human 
nature  functions  pretty  much  the  same  among  all  men. 
The  troUers  distrusted  Folly  Bay.  They  said  to  one 
another  that  if  Gower  could  kill  off  competition  he 
would  cut  the  price  to  the  bone.  He  had  done  that 
before.  But  when  a  fisherman  rises  wearily  from  his 
bunk  at  three  in  the  morning  and  spends  the  bulk  of  the 
next  eighteen  hours  hauling  four  one  hundred  and  fifty 
foot  lines,  each  weighted  with  from  six  to  fifteen  pounds 
of  lead,  he  feels  that  he  is  entitled  to  every  cent  he  can 
secure  for  his  day's  labor. 

The  Gower  boats  got  fish.  The  mustard  pot  came 
back  next  day,  paying  fifty-five  cents.  A  good  many 
troUers   sold  him   their   fish  before   they  learned   that 


A  RENEWAL  OF  HOSTILITIES  251 

MacRae  was  paying  the  same.  And  the  mustard  pot 
evidently  had  his  orders,  for  he  tilted  the  price  to  si^ty, 
which  forced  MacRae  to  do  the  same. 

When  the  Blanco  unloaded  her  cargo  of  eight-thou- 
sand-odd salmon  into  the  Terminal  and  MacRae  checked 
his  receipts  and  expenditures  for  that  trip,  he  dis- 
covered that  he  had  neither  a  profit  nor  a  loss. 

He  went  to  see  Stubby,  explained  briefly  the  situa- 
tion. 

"  You  can't  get  any  more  cheap  salmon  for  cold  stor- 
age until  the  seiners  begin  to  take  coho,  that 's  certain," 
he  declared.  "  How  far  can  you  go  in  this  price  fight 
when  you  open  the  cannery?" 

"  Gower  appears  to  have  gone  a  bit  wild,  does  n't 
he.'"'  Stubby  ruminated.  "Let's  see.  Those  fish  are 
running  about  five  pounds  now.  They'll  get  a  bit 
heavier  as  we  go  along.  Well,  I  can  certainly  pack  as 
cheaply  as  he  can.  I  tell  you,  go  easy  for  a  week,  till 
I  get  Crow  Harbor  under  way.  Then  you  can  pay  up 
to  seventy-five  cents  and  I  '11  allow  you  ^ve  cents  a  fish 
commission.  I  don't  believe  he'll  dare  pay  more  than 
that  before  late  in  July.  If  he  does,  why,  we  '11  see  what 
we  can  do." 

MacRae  went  back  to  Squitty.  He  could  make 
money  with  the  Blanco  on  a  five-cent  commission, — 
if  he  coulfl  get  the  salmon  within  the  price  limit.  So  for 
the  next  trip  or  two  he  contented  himself  with  meeting 
Gower's  price  and  taking  what  fish  came  to  him.  The 
Folly  Bay  mustard  pots  —  three  of  them  great  and 
small  —  scurried  here  and  there  among  the  trollers, 
dividing  the  catch  with  the  Bltuehird  and  the  Blanco. 
There  was  always  a  mustard-pot  collector  in  sight. 
The  weather  was  getting  hot.  Salmon  would  not  keep 
in  a  troller's  hold.     Part  of  the  old  guard  stuck  tight 


252  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

to  MacRae.  But  there  were  new  men  fishing ;  there  were 
Japanese  and  illiterate  Greeks.  It  was  not  to  be  ex- 
pected that  these  men  should  indulge  in  far-sighted 
calculations.  But  it  was  a  trifle  disappointing  to  see 
how  readily  any  troller  would  unload  his  catch  into  a 
mustard  pot  if  neither  of  MacRae's  carriers  happened 
to  be  at  hand. 

"  Why  don't  you  tie  up  your  boats,  Jack.''  "  Vin  asked 
angrily.  "You  know  what  would  happen.  Gower 
would  drop  the  price  with  a  bang.  You  'd  think  these 
damned  idiots  would  know  that.  Yet  they're  feeding 
him  fish  by  the  thousand.  They  don't  appear  to  care 
a  hoot  whether  you  get  any  or  not.  I  used  to  think 
fishermen  had  some  sense.  These  fellows  can't  see  an 
inch  past  their  cursed  noses.  PuU  off  your  boats  for  a 
couple  of  weeks  and  let  them  get  their  bumps." 

'^  What  do  you  expect?"  MacRae  said  lightly.  "It 's 
a  scramble,  and  they  are  acting  precisely  as  they  might 
be  expected  to  act.  I  don't  blame  them.  They  're 
under  the  same  necessity  as  the  rest  of  us  —  to  get  it 
while  they  can.  Did  you  think  they'd  sell  me  fish  for 
sixty  if  somebody  else  offered  sixty-five.''  You  know 
how  big  a  nickel  looks  to  a  man  who  earns  it  as  hard  as 
these  fellows  do." 

"No,  but  they  don't  seem  to  care  who  gets  their 
salmon,"  Vin  growled.  "  Even  when  you  're  paying 
the  same,  they  act  like  they'd  just  as  soon  Gower  got 
'em  as  you.  You  paid  more  than  Folly  Bay  all  last 
season.  You  put  all  kinds  of  money  in  their  pockets 
that  you  didn't  have  to." 

"  And  when  the  pinch,  comes,  they  '11  remember  that," 
MacRae  said.  "  You  watch,  Vin.  The  season  is  young 
yet.  Gower  may  beat  me  at  this  game,  but  he  won't 
make  any  money  at  it." 


A  RENEWAL  OF  HOSTILITIES  253 

MacRae  kept  abreast  of  Folly  Bay  for  ten  days  and 
emerged  from  that  period  with  a  slight  loss,  because  at 
the  close  he  was  paying  more  than  the  salmon  were 
worth  at  the  Terminal  warehouse.  But  when  he  ran 
his  first  load  into  Crow  Harbor  Stubby  looked  over 
the  pile  of  salmon  his  men  were  forking  across  the  floor 
and  drew  Jack  into  his  office. 

"  I  've  made  a  contract  for  delivery  of  my  entire  sock- 
eye  and  blueback  pack,"  he  said.  "I  know  precisely 
where  I  stand.  I  can  pay  up  to  ninety  cents  for  all 
July  fish.  I  want  all  the  Squitty  bluebacks  you  can 
get.     Go  after  them.  Jack." 

And  MacRae  went  after  them.  Wherever  a  Folly 
Bay  collector  went  either  the  Blanco  or  the  Bluebird 
was  on  his  heels.  MacRae  could  cover  more  ground  and 
carry  more  cargo,  and  keep  it  fresh,  than  any  mustard 
pot.  The  Bluebird  covered  little  outlying  nooks,  the 
stragglers,  the  rowboat  men  in  their  beach  camps. 
The  Blanco  kept  mostly  in  touch  with  the  main  fleet 
patrolling  the  southeastern  end  of  Squitty  like  a  naval 
flotilla,  wheeling  and  counterwheeling  over  the  grounds 
where  the  blueback  played.  MacRae  forced  the  issue. 
He  raised  the  price  to  sixty-five,  to  seventy,  to  seventy- 
five,  to  eighty,  and  the  boats  under  the  yellow  house 
flag  had  to  pay  that  to  get  a  fish.  MacRae  crowded 
them  remorselessly  to  the  limit.  So  long  as  he  got  five 
cents  a  fish  he  could  make  money.  He  suspected  that 
it  cost  Gower  a  great  deal  more  than  five  cents  a  sal- 
mon to  collect  what  he  got.  And  he  did  not  get  so 
many  now.  With  the  opening  of  the  sockeye  season  on 
the  Fraser  and  in  the  north  the  Japs  abandoned  trol- 
ling for  the  gill  net.  The  white  trollers  returned  to 
their  first  love  because  he  courted  them  assiduously. 
There  was  always  a  MacRae  carrier  in  the  offing.     It 


254  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

cost  MacRae  his  sleep  and  rest,  but  he  drove  himself 
tirelessly.  He  could  leave  Squitty  at  dusk,  unload  his 
salmon  at  Crow  Harbor,  and  be  back  at  sunrise.  He 
did  it  many  a  time,  after  tallying  fish  all  day.  Three 
hours'  sleep  was  like  a  gift  from  the  gods.  But  he  kept 
it  up.     He  had  a  sense  of  some  approaching  crisis. 

By  the  third  week  in  July  MacRae  was  taking  three 
fourths  of  the  bluebacks  caught  between  the  Ballenas 
and  Folly  Bay.  He  would  lie  sometimes  within  a  stone's 
throw  of  Gower's  cannery,  loading  salmon. 

He  Was  swinging  at  anchor  there  one  day  when  a 
rowboat  from  the  cannery  put  out  to  the  Blanco.  The 
man  in  it  told  MacRae  that  Gower  would  like  to  see  him. 
MacRae's  first  impulse  was  to  grin  and  ignore  the  re- 
quest. Then  he  changed  his  mind,  and  taking  his  own 
dinghy  rowed  ashore.  Some  time  or  other  he  would 
have  to  meet  his  father's  enemy,  face  him,  talk  to  him, 
listen  to  what  he  might  say,  tell  him  things.  Curiosity 
was  roused  in  him  a  little  now.  He  desired  to  know 
what  Gower  had  to  say.  He  wondered  if  Gower  was 
weakening;  what  he  could  want. 

He  found  Gower  in  a  cubby-hole  of  an  office  behind 
the  cannery  store. 

"You  wanted  to  see  me,"   MacRae  said  curtly. 

He  was  in  sea  boots,  bareheaded.  His  shirt  sleeves 
were  rolled  above  sun-browned  forearms.  He  stood 
before  Gower  with  his  hands  thrust  in  the  pockets  of 
duck  overalls  speckled  with  fish  scales,  smelling  of  sal- 
mon. Gower  stared  at  him  silently,  critically,  it  seemed 
to  MacRae,  for  a  matter  of  seconds. 

"  What 's  the  sense  in  our  cutting  each  other's  throats 
over  these  fish?"  Gower  asked  at  length.  "I've  been 
wanting  to  talk  to  you  for  quite  a  while.  Let 's  get 
together.     I — " 


A  RENEWAL  OF  HOSTILITIES  255 

MacRae's  temper  flared. 

"  If  that 's  what  you  want,"  he  said,  "  I  '11  see  you  in 
hell  first." 

He  turned  on  his  heel  and  walked  out  of  the  office. 
When  he  stepped  into  his  dinghy  he  glanced  up  at  the 
wharf  towering  twenty  feet  above  his  head.  Betty 
Gower  was  sitting  on  a  pile  head.  She  was  looking 
down  at  him.  But  she  was  not  smiling.  And  she  did 
not  speak.  MacRae  rowed  back  to  the  Blanco  in  an 
ugly  mood. 

In  the  next  forty-eight  hours  Folly  Bay  jumped  the 
price  of  bluebacks  to  ninety  cents,  to  ninety-five,  to  a 
dollar.  The  Blanco  wallowed  down  to  Crow  Harbor 
with  a  load  which  represented  to  MacRae  a  dead  loss  of 
four  hundred  dollars  cash. 

"He  must  be  crazy,"  Stubby  fumed.  "There's  no 
use  canning  salmon  at  a  loss." 

"Has  he  reached  the  loss  point  yet.?"  MacRae  in- 
quired. 

"  He 's  shaving  close.  No  cannery  can  make  any- 
thing worth  reckoning  at  a  dollar  or  so  a  case  profit." 

"Is  ninety  cents  and  five  cents'  commission  your 
limit?  "   MacRae  demanded. 

"Just  about,"  Stubby  grunted.  "Well"  — reluc- 
tantly —  "I  can  stand  a  dollar.  That 's  the  utmost 
limit,  though.     I  can't  go  any  further." 

"  And  if  he  gets  them  all  at  a  dollar  or  more,  he  '11  be 
canning  at  a  dead  loss,  eh?" 

"He  certainly  will,"  Stubby  declared.  "Unless  he 
cans  'em  heads,  tails,  and  scales,  and  gets  a  bigger  price 
per  case  than  has  been  offered  yet." 

MacRae  went  back  to  Squitty  with  a  definite  idea 
in  his  mind.  Gower  had  determined  to  have  the  salmon. 
Very  well,  then,  he  should  have  them.     But  he  would 


256  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

have  to  take  them  at  a  loss,  in  so  far  as  MacRae  could 
inflict  loss  upon  him.  He  knew  of  no  other  way  to 
hurt  effectively  such  a  man  as  Gower.  Money  was 
life  blood  to  him,  and  it  was  not  of  great  value  to 
MacRae  as  yet.  With  deliberate  calculation  he  de- 
cided to  lose  the  greater  part  of  what  he  had  made,  if 
for  every  dollar  he  lost  himself  he  could  inflict  equal  or 
greater  loss  on  Gower, 

The  trollers  who  combed  the  Squitty  waters  were 
taking  now  close  to  five  thousand  salmon  a  day.  Ap- 
proximately half  of  these  went  to  Folly  Bay.  MacRae 
took  the  rest.  In  this  battle  of  giants  the  fishermen 
had  lost  sight  of  the  outcome.  They  ceased  to  care 
who  got  fish.  They  only  watched  eagerly  for  him  who 
paid  the  biggest  price.  They  were  making  thirty, 
forty,  fifty  dollars  a  day.  They  no  longer  held  sal- 
mon—  only  a  few  of  the  old-timers  —  for  MacRae's 
carriers.  It  was  nothing  to  them  who  made  a  profit  or 
suffered  a  loss.  Only  a  few  of  the  older  men  wondered 
privately  how  long  MacRae  could  stand  it  and  what 
would  happen  when  he  gave  up. 

MacRae  met  every  raise  Folly  Bay  made.  He  saw 
bluebacks  go  to  a  dollar  ten,  then  to  a  dollar  fifteen. 
He  ran  cargo  after  cargo  to  Crow  Harbor  and  dropped 
from  three  to  seven  hundred  dollars  on  each  load,  until 
even  Stubby  lost  patience  with  him. 

"  What 's  the  sense  in  bucking  him  till  you  go  broke? 
I  'm  in  too  deep  to  stand  any  loss  myself.  Quit.  Tie 
up  your  boats.  Jack.  Let  him  have  the  salmon.  Let 
those  blockheads  of  fishermen  see  what  he  '11  do  to  'em 
once  you  stop." 

But  MacRae  held  on  till  the  first  hot  days  of  August 
were  at  hand  and  his  money  was  dwindling  to  the 
vanishing  point.    Then  he  ran  the  Blanco  and  the  Blue- 


A  RENEWAL  OF  HOSTILITIES  257 

bird  into  Squitty  Cove  and  tied  them  to  permanent 
moorings  in  shoal  water  near  the  head.  For  a  day  or 
two  the  salmon  had  shifted  mysteriously  to  the  top  end, 
around  Folly  Bay  and  the  Siwash  Islands  and  Jenkins 
Pass.  The  bulk  of  the  fleet  had  followed  them.  Only 
a  few  stuck  to  the  Cove  and  Poor  Man's  Rock.  To 
these  and  the  rowboat  trollers  MacRae  said: 

"  Sell  your  fish  to  Folly  Bay.    I  'm  through." 

Then  he  lay  down  in  his  bunk  in  the  airy  pilot 
house  of  the  Blanco  and  slept  the  clock  around,  the  first 
decent  rest  he  had  taken  in  two  months.  He  had  not 
realized  till  then  how  tired  he  was. 

When  he  wakened  he  washed,  ate,  changed  his  clothes 
and  went  for  a  walk  along  the  cliffs  to  stretch  his  legs. 
Vin  had  gone  up  to  the  Knob  to  see  Dolly  and  Uncle 
Peter.  His  helper  on  the  Bluebird  was  tinkering  about 
his  engine.  MacRae's  two  men  loafed  on  the  clean- 
slushed  deck.  They  were  none  of  them  company  for 
MacRae  in  his  present  mood.  He  sought  the  cliffs  to 
be  alone. 

Gower  had  beaten  him,  it  would  seem.  And  MacRae 
did  not  take  kindly  to  being  beaten.  But  he  did  not 
think  this  was  the  end  yet.  Gower  would  do  as  he  had 
done  before.  When  he  felt  himself  secure  in  his  mo- 
nopoly he  would  squeeze  the  fishermen,  squeeze  them 
hard.  And  as  soon  as  he  did  that  MacRae  would  buy 
again.  He  could  not  make  any  money  himself,  perhaps. 
But  he  could  make  Gower  operate  at  a  loss.  That 
would  be  something  accomplished. 

MacRae  walked  along  the  cliffs  until  he  saw  the 
white  cottage,  and  saw  also  that  some  one  sat  on  the 
steps  in  the  sun.  Whereupon  he  turned  back.  He 
didn't  want  to  see  Betty.  He  conceived  that  to  be  an 
ended  chapter  in  his  experiences.    He  had  hurt  her,  and 


258  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

she  had  put  on  her  armor  against  another  such  hurt. 
There  was  a  studied  indifference  about  her  now,  when 
he  met  her,  which  hurt  him  terribly.  He  supposed  that 
in  addition  to  his  own  incomprehensible  attitude  which 
she  resented,  she  took  sides  with  her  father  in  this  ob- 
vious commercial  warfare  which  was  bleeding  them  both 
financially.  Very  likely  she  saw  in  this  only  the  open 
workings  of  his  malice  toward  Gower.  In  which  Mac- 
Rae  admitted  she  would  be  quite  correct.  He  had  not 
been  able  to  discover  in  that  flaring-up  of  passion  for 
Betty  any  reason  for  a  burial  of  his  feud  with  Gower. 
There  was  in  him  some  curious  insistence  upon  carrying 
this  to  the  bitter  end.  And  his  hatred  of  Gower  was 
something  alive,  vital,  coloring  his  vision  somberly. 
The  shadow  of  the  man  lay  across  his  life.  He  could 
not  ignore  this,  and  his  instinct  was  for  reprisal.  The 
fighting  instinct  in  MacRae  lurked  always  very  near 
the  surface. 

He  spent  a  good  many  hours  during  the  next  three 
or  four  days  lying  in  the  shade  of  a  gnarly  arbutus 
which  gave  on  the  cliffs.  He  took  a  book  up  there  with 
him,  but  most  of  the  time  he  lay  staring  up  at  the  blue 
sky  through  the  leaves,  or  at  the  sea,  or  distant  shore 
lines,  thinking  always  in  circles  which  brought  him  de- 
spairingly out  where  he  went  in.  He  saw  a  mustard 
pot  slide  each  day  into  the  Cove  and  pass  on  about  its 
business.  There  was  not  a  great  deal  to  be  got  in  the 
Cove.  The  last  gas  boat  had  scuttled  away  to  the  top 
end,  where  the  blueback  were  schooling  in  vast  numbers. 
There  were  stiU  salmon  to  be  taken  about  Poor  Man's 
Rock.  The  rowboat  men  took  a  few  fish  each  day  and 
hoped  for  another  big  run. 

There  came  a  day  when  the  mustard  pot  failed  to 
show  in  the  Cove.    The  rowboat  men  had  three  hundred 


A  RENEWAL  OF  HOSTILITIES  259 

salmon,  and  they  cursed  Folly  Bay  with  a  fine  flow  of 
epithet  as  they  took  their  rotting  fish  outside  the  Cove 
and  dumped  them  in  the  sea.  Nor  did  a  Gower  col- 
lector come,  although  there  was  nothing  in  the  wind  or 
weather  to  stop  them.  The  rowboat  trollers  fumed  and 
stewed  and  took  their  troubles  to  Jack  MacRae.  But 
he  could  neither  inform  nor  help  them. 

Then  upon  an  evening  when  the  sun  rested  on  the 
serrated  backbone  of  Vancouver  Island,  a  fiery  ball 
against  a  sky  of  burnished  copper,  flinging  a  red  haze 
down  on  a  slow  swell  that  furrowed  the  Gulf,  Jack 
MacRae,  perched  on  a  mossy  boulder  midway  between 
the  Cove  and  Point  Old,  saw  first  one  boat  and  then 
another  come  slipping  and  lurching  around  Poor  Man's 
Rock.  Converted  Columbia  River  sailboats,  Cape  Flat- 
tery trollers,  double-enders,  all  the  variegated  craft 
that  fishermen  use  and  traffic  with,  each  rounded  the 
Rock  and  struck  his  course  for  the  Cove,  broadside  on 
to  the  rising  swell,  their  twenty-foot  trolling  poles 
lashed  aloft  against  a  stumpy  mast  and  swinging  in  a 
great  arc  as  they  rolled.  One,  ten,  a  dozen,  an  endless 
procession,  sometimes  three  abreast,  again  a  string  in 
single  file.  MacRae  was  reminded  of  the  march  of  the 
oysters  — 

"So  thick  and  fast  they  came  at  last. 
And  more  and  more  and  more.'* 

He  sat  watching  them  pass,  wondering  why  the  great 
trek.  The  trolling  fleet  normally  shifted  by  pairs  and 
dozens.  This  was  a  squadron  movement,  the  Grand 
Fleet  steaming  to  some  appointed  rendezvous.  MacRae 
watched  till  the  sun  dipped  behind  the  hills,  and  the 
reddish  tint  left  the  sea  to  linger  briefly  on  the  summit 
of  the  Coast  Range  flanking  the  mainland  shore.  The 
fish   boats   were   still   coming,    one   behind   the    other, 


26o  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

lurching  and  swinging  in  the  trough  of  the  sea,  rising 
and  falling,  with  wheeling  gulls  crying  above  them. 
On  each  deck  a  solitary  fisherman  humped  over  his 
steering  gear.  From  each  cleaving  stem  the  bow-wave 
curled  in  white  foam. 

There  was  something  in  the  wind.  MacRae  felt  it 
like  a  premonition.  He  left  his  boulder  and  hurried 
back  toward  the  Cove. 

The  trolling  boats  were  packed  about  the  Blanco  so 
close  that  MacRae  left  his  dinghy  on  the  outer  fringe 
and  walked  across  their  decks  to  the  deck  of  his  own 
vessel.  The  Blanco  loomed  in  the  midst  of  these  lesser 
craft  like  a  hen  over  her  brood  of  chicks.  The  fishermen 
had  gathered  on  the  nearest  boats.  A  dozen  had  clam- 
bered up  and  taken  seats  on  the  Blanco^s  low  bulwarks. 
MacRae  gained  his  own  deck  and  looked  at  them. 

"What's  coming  off?"  he  asked  quietly.  "You 
fellows  holding  a  convention  of  some  sort.'' " 

One  of  the  men  sitting  on  the  big  carrier's  rail  spoke. 

"Folly  Bay's  quit  —  shut  down,"  he  said  sheep- 
ishly.    "  We  come  to  see  if  you  'd  start  buying  again." 

MacRae  sat  down  on  one  sheave  of  his  deck  winch. 
He  took  out  a  cigarette  and  lighted  it,  swung  one  foot 
back  and  forth.  He  did  not  make  haste  to  reply.  An 
expectant  hush  fell  on  the  crowd.  In  the  slow-gathering 
dusk  there  was  no  sound  but  the  creak  of  rubbing  gun- 
wales, the  low  snore  of  the  sea  breaking  against  the 
cliffs,  and  the  chug-chug  of  the  last  stragglers  beating 
into  the  shelter  of  the  Cove. 

"  He  shut  down  the  cannery,"  the  fishermen's  spokes- 
man said  at  last.  "  We  ain't  seen  a  buyer  or  collector 
for  three  days.  The  water 's  full  of  salmon,  an'  we  been 
suckin'  our  thumbs  an'  watching  'em  play.  If  you  won't 
buy  here  again  we  got  to  go  where  there  is  buyers.    And 


A  RENEWAL  OF  HOSTILITIES  261 

we  'd  rather  not  do  that.  There 's  no  place  on  the  Gulf 
as  good  fishin'  as  there  is  here  now." 

"What  was  the  trouble?"  MacRae  asked  absently. 
"Couldn't  you  supply  him  with  fish?" 

"  Nobody  knows.  There  was  plenty  of  salmon.  He 
cut  the  price  the  day  after  you  tied  up.  He  cut  it  to 
six  bits.  Then  he  shut  down.  Anyway,  we  don't  care 
why  he  shut  down.  It  don't  make  no  difference.  What 
we  want  is  for  you  to  start  buyin'  again.  Hell,  we  're 
losin'  money  from  daylight  to  dark !  The  water 's  alive 
with  salmon.  An'  the  season's  short.  Be  a  sport, 
MacRae." 

MacRae  laughed. 

"Be  a  sport,  eh?  "  he  echoed  with  a  trace  of  amuse- 
ment in  his  tone.  "I  wonder  how  many  of  you  would 
have  listened  to  me  if  I  'd  gone  around  to  you  a  week 
ago  and  asked  you  to  give  me  a  sporting  chance  ?  " 

No  one  answered.  MacRae  threw  away  his  half- 
smoked  cigarette.    He  stood  up. 

"  All  right,  I  '11  buy  salmon  again,"  he  said  quietly. 
"And  I  won't  ask  you  to  give  me  first  call  on  your 
catch  or  a  chance  to  make  up  some  of  the  money  I  lost 
bucking  Folly  Bay,  or  anything  like  that.  But  I  want 
to  tell  you  something.  You  know  it  as  well  as  I  do,  but 
I  want  to  jog  your  memory  with  it." 

He  raised  his  voice  a  trifle. 

**You  fellows  know  that  I've  always  given  you  a 
square  deal.  You  aren't  fishing  for  sport.  You're 
at  this  to  make  a  living,  to  make  money  if  you  can.  So 
am  I.  You  are  entitled  to  all  you  can  get.  You  earn 
it.  You  work  for  it.  So  am  I  entitled  to  what  I  can 
make.  I  work,  I  take  certain  chances.  Neither  of  us 
is  getting  something  for  nothing.  But  there  is  a  limit 
to  what  either  of  us  can  get.     We  can't  dodge  that. 


262  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

You  fellows  have  been  dodging  it.  Now  you  have  to 
come  back  to  earth. 

"  No  fisherman  can  get  the  prices  you  have  had  lately. 
No  cannery  can  pack  salmon  at  those  prices.  Sockeye, 
the  finest  canning  salmon  that  swims  in  the  sea,  is 
bringing  eighty  cents  on  the  Fraser.  Bluebacks  are 
sixty-five  cents  at  Nanaimo,  sixty  at  Cape  Mudge, 
sixty  at  the  Euclataws. 

"I  can  do  a  little  better  than  that,"  MacRae  hesi- 
tated a  second.  "  I  can  pay  a  little  more,  because  the 
cannery  I'm  supplying  is  satisfied  with  a  little  less 
profit  than  most.  Stubby  Abbott  is  not  a  hog,  and 
neither  am  I.  I  can  pay  seventy-five  cents  and  make 
money.  I  have  told  you  before  that  it  is  to  your  inter- 
est as  well  as  mine  to  keep  me  running.  I  will  always 
pay  as  much  as  salmon  are  worth.  But  I  cannot  pay 
more.  If  your  appreciation  of  Folly  Bay's  past  kind- 
ness to  you  is  so  keen  that  you  would  rather  sell  him 
your  fish,  why,  that's  your  privilege." 

"Aw,  that's  bunk,"  a  man  called.  "You  know 
blamed  well  we  wouldn't.  Not  after  him  blowin'  up 
like  this." 

"How  do  I  know.?"  MacRae  laughed.  "If  Gower 
opened  up  to-morrow  again  and  oflPered  eighty  or  ninety 
cents,  he  'd  get  the  salmon  —  even  if  you  knew  he  would 
make  you  take  thirty  once  he  got  you  where  he  wanted 
you." 

"Would  he.^^"  another  voice  uprose.  "The  next 
time  a  mustard  pot  gets  any  salmon  from  me,  it  '11  be 
because  there's  no  other  buyer  and  no  other  grounds 
to  fish." 

A  growled  chorus  backed  this  reckless  statement. 

"  That 's  all  right,"  MacRae  said  good-naturedly. 
"  I  don't  blame  you  for  picking  up  easy  money.    Only 


A  RENEWAL  OF  HOSTILITIES  263 

easy  money  is  n't  always  so  good  as  it  looks.  Fly  at  it 
in  the  morning,  and  I  '11  take  the  fish  at  the  price  I  've 
said.  If  Folly  Bay  gets  into  the  game  again,  it's  up 
to  you." 

When  the  lights  were  doused  and  every  fisherman 
was  stretched  in  his  bunk,  falling  asleep  to  the  slow 
beat  of  a  dead  swell  breaking  in  the  Cove's  mouth,  Vin 
Ferrara  stood  up  to  seek  his  own  bed. 

"  I  wonder,"  he  said  to  Jack,  "  I  wonder  why  Gower 
shut  down  at  this  stage  of  the  game?" 

MacRae  shook  his  head.  He  was  wondering  that 
himself. 


CHAPTER   XIX 

Top  Dog 

Some  ten  days  later  the  Bluebird  swung  at  anchor  in 
the  kelp  just  clear  of  Poor  Man's  Rock.  From  a  speck 
on  the  horizon  the  Blanco  grew  to  full  shape,  flaring 
bow  and  pilot  house,  walking  up  the  Gulf  with  a  bone 
in  her  teeth.  She  bore  down  upon  her  consort,  sidled 
alongside  and  made  fast  with  lines  to  the  bitts  fore  and 
aft.  Vin  Ferrara  threw  back  his  hatch  covers.  His 
helper  forked  up  salmon  with  a  picaroon.  Vin  tossed 
them  across  into  the  Blanco's  hold.  At  the  same  time 
the  larger  carrier's  short,  stout  boom  swung  back  and 
forth,  dumping  into  the  Bluebird's  fish  pens  at  each 
trip  a  hundred  pounds  of  cracked  ice.  Presently  this 
work  was  done,  the  Bluebird's  salmon  transferred  to  the 
Blanco,  the  Bluebird's  pens  replenished  with  four  tons 
of  ice. 

Vin  checked  his  tabs  with  the  count  of  fish.  The 
other  men  slushed  decks  clean  with  buckets  of  sea 
water. 

*' Twenty-seven  hundred,"  MacRae  said.  "Big 
morning.     Every  troUer  in  the  Gulf  must  be  here." 

"  No,  I  have  to  go  to  Folly  Bay  and  Siwash  Islands 
to-night,"  Vin  told  him.  "  There 's  about  twenty  boats 
working  there  and  at  Jenkins  Pass.  Salmon  every- 
where." 

They  sat  in  the  shade  of  the  Blanco's  pilot  house. 
The  sun  beat  mercilessly,  a  dog-day  sun  blazing  upon 


TOP  DOG  265 

glassy  waters,  reflected  upward  in  eye-straining  shafts. 
The  heat  seared.  Within  a  radius  of  a  mile  outside  the 
Rock  the  trollers  chug-chugged  here  and  there,  driving 
straight  ahead,  doubling  short,  wheeling  in  slow  circles, 
working  the  eddies.  They  stood  in  the  small  cockpit 
aft,  the  short  tiller  between  their  legs,  leaving  their 
hands  free  to  work  the  gear.  They  stood  out  in  the 
hot  sun  without  shade  or  cover,  stripped  to  undersliirt 
and  duck  trousers,  many  of  them  barefooted,  brown 
arms  bare,  wet  lines  gleaming.  Wherever  a  man  looked 
some  fisherman  hauled  a  line.  And  everywhere  the 
mirror  of  the  sea  was  broken  by  leaping  salmon,  silver 
crescents  flashing  in  the  sun. 

"  Say,  what  do  you  know  about  it  ?  "  Vin  smiled  at 
MacRae.    "  Old  Gower  is  trolling." 

"Trolling!" 

"  Rowboat.  Plugging  around  the  Rock.  He  was  at 
it  when  daylight  came.  He  sold  me  fifteen  fish.  Think 
of  it.  Old  H.  A.  rowboat  trolling.  Selling. his  fish  to 
you." 

Vincent  chuckled.  His  eyes  rested  curiously  on 
Jack's  face. 

"Haughty  spirit  that  goes  before  destruction,  as 
Dolly  used  to  say,"  he  rambled  on.  "  Some  come-down 
for  him.     He  must  be  broke  flat  as  a  flounder." 

"  He  sold  you  his  salmon?  " 

"Sure.  Nobody  else  to  sell  'em  to,  is  there?  Said 
he  was  trying  his  hand.  Seemed  good-natured  about 
it.  Kinda  pleased,  in  fact,  because  he  had  one  more 
than  Doug  Sproul.  He  started  joshin'  Doug.  You 
know  what  a  crab  old  Doug  is.  He  got  crusty  as  blazes. 
Old  Gower  just  grinned  at  him  and  rowed  off." 

^lacRae  made  no  comment,  and  their  talk  turned  into 
other  channels  until  Vin  hauled  his  hook  and  bore  away. 


266  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

MacRae  saw  to  dropping  the  Blanco's  anchor.  He 
would  He  there  till  dusk.  Then  he  sat  in  the  shade 
again,  looking  up  at  the  Gower  cottage. 

Gower  was  finished  as  an  exploiter.  There  was  no 
question  about  that.  When  a  man  as  big  as  he  went 
down  the  crash  set  tongues  wagging.  All  the  current 
talk  reached  MacRae  through  Stubby.  That  price-war 
had  been  Gower's  last  kick,  an  incomprehensible,  ill- 
judged  effort  to  reestablish  his  hold  on  the  Squitty 
grounds,  so  it  was  said. 

"  He  never  was  such  a  terribly  big  toad  in  the  cannery 
puddle,"  Stubby  recited,  "  and  I  guess  he  has  made  his 
last  splash.  They  always  cut  a  wide  swath  in  town, 
and  that  sort  of  thing  can  sure  eat  up  coin.  I  'm  kind 
of  sorry  for  Betty.  Still,  she  '11  probably  marry  some- 
body with  money.  I  know  two  or  three  fellows  who 
would  be  tickled  to  death  to  get  her." 

"Why  don't  you  go  to  the  rescue?"  MacRae  had 
suggested,  with  an  irony  that  went  wide  of  the  mark. 

Stubby  looked  reflectively  at  his  crippled  arm, 

"  Last  summer  I  would  have,"  he  said.  "  But  she 
couldn't  see  me  with  a  microscope.  And  I've  found  a 
girl  who  seems  to  think  a  winged  duck  is  worth  while." 

"You'll  be  able  to  get  hold  of  that  ranch  of  yours 
again,  probably,"  Stubby  had  also  said.  "  The  chances 
are  old  H.  A.  will  raise  what  cash  he  can  and  try  to  make 
a  fresh  start.  It  seems  there  has  been  friction  in  the 
family,  and  his  wife  refused  to  come  through  with  any 
of  her  available  cash.  Seems  kind  of  a  complicated  hole 
he  got  into.  He 's  cleaned,  anyway.  Robbin-Steele  got 
all  his  cannery  tenders  and  took  over  several  thousand 
cases  of  salmon.  I  hear  he  still  has  a  few  debts  to  be 
settled  when  the  cannery  is  sold.  Why  don't  you  figure 
a  way  of  getting  hold  of  that  cannery.  Jack.? " 


TOP  DOG  267 

"  I  'm  no  cannery  man,"  MacRae  replied.  "  Why 
don't  you?     I  thought  you  made  him  an  offer." 

"  I  withdrew  it,"  Stubby  said.  "  I  have  my  hands 
full  without  that.  You've  knocked  about  a  hundred 
per  cent,  off  its  value  anyway." 

"  If  I  can  get  my  father's  land  back  I  '11  be  satisfied," 
MacRae  had  said. 

He  was  thinking  about  that  now.  He  had  taken  the 
first  steps  toward  that  end,  which  a  year  ago  had  seemed 
misty  and  rather  hopeless.  Gower  rich,  impregnable, 
would  hold  that  land  for  his  own  pleasure  and  satisfac- 
tion. Beaten  in  the  commercial  scramble  he  might  be 
forced  to  let  it  go.  And  MacRae  was  ready  to  pay  any 
price  in  reason  to  get  it  back.  That  seemed  a  debt  he 
owed  old  Donald  MacRae,  apart  from  his  own  craving 
to  sometime  carry  out  plans  they  had  made  together 
long  before  he  went  away  to  France.  The  lives  of  some 
men  are  rooted  in  the  soil  where  they  were  bom,  where 
they  grow  to  manhood.  Jack  MacRae  was  of  that 
type.  He  loved  the  sea  in  all  its  moods  and  colors,  its 
quiet  calm  and  wildest  storms.  But  the  sea  was  only 
his  second  love.  He  was  a  landsman  at  heart.  All  sea- 
men are.  They  come  ashore  when  they  are  old  and 
feeble,  to  give  their  bodies  at  last  to  the  earth.  Mac- 
Rae loved  the  sea,  but  he  loved  better  to  stand  on  the 
slopes  running  back  from  Squitty's  cliffs,  to  look  at 
those  green  meadows  and  bits  of  virgin  forest  and  think 
that  it  would  all  be  his  again,  to  have  and  to  hold. 

So  he  had  set  a  firm  in  Vancouver  the  task  of  ap- 
proaching Gower,  to  sound  him,  to  see  if  he  would  sell, 
while  he  kept  in  the  background.  He  believed  that 
it  was  necessary  for  him  to  remain  in  the  background. 
He  believed  that  Gower  would  never  willingly  relinquish 
that  land  into  his  hands. 


268  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

MacRae  sat  on  the  Blanco^s  deck,  nursing  his  chin  in 
his  pahns,  staring  at  Poor  Man's  Rock  with  a  grim 
satisfaction.  About  that  lonely  headland  strange 
things  had  come  to  pass.  Donald  MacRae  had  felt  his 
first  abiding  grief  there  and  cried  his  hurt  to  a  windy 
sky.  He  had  lived  his  last  years  snatching  a  precarious 
living  from  the  seas  that  swirled  about  the  Rock.  The 
man  who  had  been  the  club  with  which  fate  bludgeoned 
old  Donald  was  making  his  last  stand  in  sight  of  the 
Rock,  just  as  Donald  MacRae  had  done.  And  when 
they  were  all  dead  and  gone.  Poor  Man's  Rock  would 
still  bare  its  brown  hummock  of  a  head  between  tides, 
the  salmon  would  still  play  along  the  kelp  beds,  in  the 
eddies  about  the  Rock.  Other  men  would  ply  the  gear 
and  take  the  silver  fish.  It  would  all  be  as  if  it  had 
never  happened.  The  earth  and  the  sea  endured  and 
men  were  passing  shadows.  ^ 

Afternoon  waned.  Faint,  cool  airs  wavered  off  the 
land,  easing  the  heat  and  the  sun-glare.  MacRae  saw 
Betty  and  her  father  come  down  to  the  beach.  She 
helped  him  slide  his  rowboat  afloat.  Then  Gower  j  oined 
the  rowers  who  were  putting  out  to  the  Rock  for  the 
evening  run.  He  passed  close  by  the  Blanco  but  Mac- 
Rae gave  him  scant  heed.  His  eyes  were  all  for  the 
girl  ashore.  Betty  sat  on  a  log,  bareheaded  in  the  sun. 
MacRae  had  a  feeling  that  she  looked  at  him.  And  she 
would  be  thinking,  ^ — God  only  knew  what. 

In  MacRae's  mind  arose  the  inevitable  question, — 
one  that  he  had  choked  back  dozens  of  times :  Was  it 
worth  while  to  hurt  her  so,  and  himself,  because  their 
fathers  had  fought,  because  there  had  been  wrongs  and 
injustices?  MacRae  shook  himself  impatiently.  He 
was  backsliding.  Besides  that  unappeasable  craving 
for  her,  vivid  images   of  her  with  tantalizing  mouth, 


TOP  DOG  269 

wayward  shining  hair,  eyes  that  answered  the  passion 
in  his  own,  besides  these  luring  pictures  of  her  which 
troubled  him  sometimes  both  in  waking  hours  and  sleep- 
ing, there  was  a  strange,  deep-seated  distrust  of  Betty 
because  she  was  the  daughter  of  her  father.  That  was 
irrational,  and  Jack  MacRae  knew  it  was  irrational. 
But  he  could  not  help  it.  It  colored  his  thought  of 
her.     It  had  governed  his  reactions. 

MacRae  himself  could  comprehend  all  too  clearly  the 
tragedy  of  his  father's  life.  But  he  doubted  if  any  one 
else  could.    He  shrank  from  unfolding  it  even  to  Betty, 

—  even  to  make  clear  to  her  why  his  hand  must  be 
against  her  father.    MacRae  knew,  or  thought  he  knew 

—  he  had  reasoned  the  thing  out  many  times  in  the  last 
few  months  —  that  Betty  would  not  turn  to  him  against 
her  own  flesh  and  blood  without  a  valid  reason.  He 
could  not,  even  in  the  name  of  love,  cut  her  off  from  all 
that  she  had  been,  from  all  that  had  made  her  what  she 
was,  and  make  her  happy.  And  MacRae  knew  that  if 
they  married  and  Betty  were  not  happy  and  contented, 
they  would  both  be  tigerishly  miserable.  There  was 
only  one  possible  avenue,  one  he  could  not  take.  He 
could  not  seek  peace  with  Gower,  even  for  Betty's  sake. 

MacRae  considered  moodily,  viewing  the  matter  from 
every  possible  angle.  He  could  not  see  where  he  could 
do  other  than  as  he  was  doing:  keep  Betty  out  of  his 
mind  as  much  as  possible  and  go  on  determinedly  mak- 
ing his  fight  to  be  top  dog  in  a  world  where  the  weak 
get  little  mercy  and  even  the  strong  do  not  always  come 
off  unscarred. 

Jack  MacRae  was  no  philosopher,  nor  an  intellectual 
superman,  but  he  knew  that  love  did  not  make  the  world 
go  round.  It  was  work.  Work  and  fighting.  Men 
spent   most   of  their  energies   in   those   two   channels. 


270  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

This  they  could  not  escape.  Love  only  shot  a  rosy  glow 
across  life.  It  did  not  absolve  a  man  from  weariness  or 
scars.  By  it,  indeed,  he  might  suffer  greater  stress  and 
deeper  scars.  To  MacRae,  love,  such  as  had  troubled 
his  father's  life  and  his  own,  seemed  to  be  an  emotion 
pregnant  with  sorrow.  But  he  could  not  deny  the 
strange  power  of  this  thing  called  love,  when  it  stirred 
men  and  women. 

His  deck  hand,  who  was  also  cook,  broke  into  Mac- 
Rae's  reflections  with  a  call  to  supper.  Jack  went  down 
the  companion  steps  into  a  forepeak  stuffy  with  the 
heat  of  the  sun  and  a  galley  stove,  a  cramped  place 
where  they  ate  heartily  despite  faint  odors  of  distillate 
and  -burned  lubricating  oil  from  the  engine  room  and 
bilge  water  that  smelled  of  fish. 

A  troller's  boat  was  rubbing  against  the  Blanco's 
fenders  when  they  came  on  deck  again.  Others  were 
hoisting  the  trolling  poles,  coming  in  to  deliver.  The 
sun  was  gone.  The  long  northern  twilight  cast  a  pearly 
haze  along  far  shores.  MacRae  threw  open  his  hatches 
and  counted  the  salmon  as  they  came  flipping  off  the 
point  of  a  picaroon.  For  over  an  hour  he  stood  at  one 
hatch  and  his  engineer  at  the  other,  counting  fish, 
making  out  sale  slips,  paying  out  money.  It  was  still 
light — light  enough  to  read.  But  the  bluebacks  had 
stopped  biting.  The  rowboat  men  quit  last  of  all. 
They  sidled  up  to  the  Blanco,  one  after  the  other,  un- 
loaded, got  their  money,  and  tied  their  rowboats  on 
behind  for  a  tow  around  to  the  Cove. 

Gower  had  rowed  back  and  forth  for  three  hours. 
MacRae  had  seen  him  swing  around  the  Rock,  up  under 
the  cliffs  and  back  again,  pulling  slow  and  steady.  He 
was  last  to  haul  in  his  gear.  He  came  up  to  the  carrier 
and  lay   alongside   Doug   Sproul  while   that   crabbed 


TOP  DOG  271 

ancient  chucked  his  salmon  on  deck.  Then  he  moved 
into  the  place  Sproul  vacated.  The  bottom  of  his  boat 
was  bright  with  salmon.  He  rested  one  hand  on  the 
Blanco'' s  guard  rail  and  took  the  pipe  out  of  his  mouth 
with  the  other. 

"Hello,  MacRae,"  he  said,  as  casually  as  a  man 
would  address  another  with  whom  he  had  slight  ac- 
quaintance.    "  I  've  got  some  fish.     D'  you  want  'em.?  " 

MacRae  looked  down  at  him.  He  did  not  want 
Gower's  fish  or  anything  that  was  Gower's.  He  did 
not  want  to  see  him  or  talk  to  him.  He  desired,  in  so 
far  as  he  was  conscious  of  any  desire  in  the  matter,  that 
Gower  should  keep  his  distance.  But  he  had  a  horror 
of  meanness,  of  petty  spite.  He  could  knock  a  man 
<;Jown  with  a  good  heart,  if  occasion  arose.  It  was  not 
in  him  to  kick  a  fallen  enemy. 

"  Chuck  them  up,"  he  said. 

He  counted  them  silently  as  they  flipped  over  the 
bulwark  and  fell  into  the  chilly  hold,  marked  a  slip, 
handed  Gower  the  money  for  them.  The  hand  that 
took  the  money,  a  pudgy  hand  all  angry  red  from  beat- 
ing sun,  had  blisters  in  the  palm.  Gower's  face,  like  his 
hands,  was  brick  red.  Already  shreds  of  skin  were  peel- 
ing from  his  nose  and  cheeks.  August  sun  on  the  Gulf. 
MacRae  knew  its  bite  and  sting.  So  had  his  father 
known.  He  wondered  if  Gower  ever  thought  about  that 
now. 

But  there  was  in  Gower's  expression  no  hint  of  any 
disturbing  thought.  He  uttered  a  brief  "  thanks  "  and 
pocketed  his  money.  He  sat  down  and  took  his  oars 
in  hand,  albeit  a  trifle  gingerly.  And  he  said  to  old 
Doug  Sproul,  almost  jovially: 

"Well,  Doug,  I  got  as  many  as  you  did,  this  trip." 

"  Didj  a  ?  "  Sproul  snarled.     "  Kain't  buy  'em  cheap 


272  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

enough,  no  more,  huh?  Gotta  ketch  'em  yourself, 
huh?" 

"Hard-boiled  old  crab,  aren't  you,  Doug?"  Gower 
rumbled  in  his  deep  voice.  But  he  laughed.  And  he 
rowed  away  to  the  beach  before  his  house.  MacRae 
watched.  Betty  came  down  to  meet  him.  Together 
they  hauled  the  heavy  rowboat  out  on  skids,  above  the 
tide  mark. 

Nearly  every  day  after  that  he  saw  Gower  trolling 
around  the  Rock,  sometimes  alone,  sometimes  with 
Betty  sitting  forward,  occasionally  relieving  him  at  the 
oars.  No  matter  what  the  weather,  if  a  rowboat  could 
work  a  line  Gower  was  one  of  them.  Rains  came,  and 
he  faced  them  in  yellow  oilskins.  He  sweltered  under 
that  fiery  sun.  If  his  life  had  been  soft  and  easy,  soft- 
ness and  ease  did  not  seem  to  be  wholly  necessary  to  his 
existence,  not  even  to  his  peace  of  mind.  For  he  had 
that.  MacRae  often  wondered  at  it,  knowing  the  man's 
history.  Gower  joked  his  way  to  acceptance  among  the 
rowboat  men,  all  but  old  Doug  Sproul,  who  had  for- 
gotten what  it  was  to  speak  pleasantly  to  any  one. 

He  caught  salmon  for  salmon  with  these  old  men  who 
had  fished  all  their  lives.  He  sold  his  fish  to  the  Blanco 
or  the  Bluebird,  whichever  was  on  the  spot.  The  run 
held  steady  at  the  Cove  end  of  Squitty,  a  phenomenal 
abundance  of  salmon  at  that  particular  spot,  and  the 
Blanco  was  there  day  after  day. 

And  MacRae  could  not  help  pondering  over  Gower 
and  his  ways.  He  was  puzzled,  not  alone  about  Gower, 
but  about  himself.  He  had  dreamed  of  a  fierce  satis- 
faction in  beating  this  man  down,  in  making  him  know 
poverty  and  work  and  privation, — rubbing  his  nose 
in  the  dirt,  he  had  said  to  himself. 

He  had  managed  it.     Gower  had  joined  the  ranks  of 


TOP  DOG  273 

broken  men.  He  was  finished  as  a  figure  in  industry, 
a  financial  power.  MacRae  knew  that,  beyond  a  doubt. 
Gower  had  debts  and  no  assets  save  his  land  on  the 
Squitty  cliifs  and  the  closed  cannery  at  Folly  Bay. 
The  cannery  was  a  white  elephant,  without  takers  in 
the  market.  No  cannery  man  would  touch  it  unless  he 
could  first  make  a  contract  with  IMacRae  for  the  blue- 
backs.  They  had  approached  him  with  such  proposi- 
tions. Like  wolves,  MacRae  thought,  seeking  to  pick 
the  bones  of  one  of  their  own  pack  who  had  fallen. 

And  if  MacRae  needed  other  evidence  concerning 
Gower,  he  had  it  daily  before  his  eyes.  To  labor  at  the 
oars,  to  troll  early  and  late  in  drizzling  rain  or  scorch- 
ing sunshine,  a  man  only  does  that  because  he  must. 
MacRae's  father  had  done  it.  As  a  matter  of  course, 
without  complaint,  with  unprotesting  patience. 

So  did  Gower.  That  did  not  fit  Jack  MacRae's  con- 
ception of  the  man.  If  he  had  not  known  Gower  he 
would  have  set  him  down  as  a  fat,  good-natured,  kindly 
man  with  an  infinite  capacity  for  hard,  disagreeable 
work. 

He  never  attempted  to  talk  to  MacRae.  He  spoke 
now  and  then.  But  there  was  no  hint  of  rancor  in  his 
silences.  It  was  simply  as  if  he  understood  that  Mac- 
Rae did  not  wish  to  talk  to  him,  and  that  he  conceded 
this  to  be  a  proper  attitude.  He  talked  with  the  fisher- 
men. He  joked  with  them.  If  one  slammed  out  at  him 
now  and  then  with  a  touch  of  the  old  resentment  against 
Folly  Bay  he  laughed  as  if  he  understood  and  bore  no 
malice.  He  baffled  MacRae.  How  could  this  man  who 
had  walked  on  fishermen's  faces  for  twenty  years,  seek- 
ing and  exacting  always  his  own  advantage,  playing  the 
game  under  harsh  rules  of  his  own  devising  which  had 
enabled  him  to  win  —  until  this  last  time  —  how  could  he 


274  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

see  the  last  bit  of  prestige  wrested  from  him  and  still 
be  cheerful?  How  could  he  earn  his  daily  bread  in  the 
literal  sweat  of  his  brow,  endure  blistered  hands  and 
sore  muscles  and  the  sting  of  slime-poison  in  fingers  cut 
by  hooks  and  traces,  with  less  outward  protest  than 
men  who  had  never  known  anything  else? 

MacRae  could  find  no  answer  to  that.  He  could  only 
wonder.  He  only  knew  that  some  shift  of  chance  had 
helped  him  to  put  Gower  where  Gower  had  put  his 
father.  And  there  was  no  satisfaction  in  the  achieve- 
ment, no  sense  of  victory.  He  looked  at  the  man  and 
felt  sorry  for  him,  and  was  uncomfortably  aware  that 
Gower,  taking  salmon  for  his  living  with  other  poor 
men  around  Poor  Man's  Rock,  was  in  no  need  of  pity. 
This  podgy  man  with  the  bright  blue  eyes  and  heavy  jaw, 
who  had  been  Donald  MacRae's  jealous  Nemesis,  had 
lost  everything  that  was  supposed  to  make  life  worth 
living  to  men  of  his  type.  And  he  did  not  seem  to  care. 
He  seemed  quite  content  to  smoke  a  pipe  and  troll  for 
salmon.  He  seemed  to  be  a  stranger  to  suffering.  He 
did  not  even  seem  to  be  aware  of  discomfort,  or  of  loss. 

MacRae  had  wanted  to  make  him  suffer.  He  had 
imagined  that  poverty  and  hard,  dirty  work  would  be 
the  fittest  requital  he  could  bestow.  If  Jack  MacRae 
had  been  gifted  with  omnipotence  when  he  read  that 
penned  history  of  his  father's  life,  he  would  have  de- 
vised no  fitter  punishment,  no  more  fitting  vengeance 
for  Gower  than  that  he  should  lose  his  fortune  and  his 
prestige  and  spend  his  last  years  getting  his  bread 
upon  the  waters  by  Poor  Man's  Rock  in  sun  and  wind 
and  blowy  weather. 

And  MacRae  was  conscious  that  if  there  were  any 
suffering  involved  in  this  matter  now,  it  rested  upon 
him,  not  upon  Gower.     Most  men  past  middle  age,  who 


TOP  DOG  275 

have  drunk  deeply  the  pleasant  wine  of  material  suc- 
cess, shrink  from  the  gaunt  specter  of  poverty.  They 
have  shot  their  bolt.  They  cannot  stand  up  to  hard 
work.  They  cannot  endure  privation.  They  lose  heart. 
They  go  about  seeking  sympathy,  railing  against  the 
fate.  They  lie  down  and  the  world  walks  unheeding 
over  their  prone  bodies. 

Gower  was  not  doing  that.  If  he  had  done  so, 
MacRae  would  have  sne;  r.d  at  him  with  contempt.  As 
it  was,  in  spite  of  the  rancor  he  had  nursed,  the  feeling 
which  had  driven  h  m  to  reprisal,  he  found  himself 
sorry  —  sorry  for  himself,  sorry  for  Betty.  He  had 
set  out  to  bludgeon  Gower,  to  humiliate  him,  and  the 
worst  arrows  he  could  sling  had  blunted  their  points 
against  the  man's  invulnerable  spirit. 

Betty  had  been  used  to  luxury.  It  had  not  spoiled 
her.  MacRae  granted  that.  It  had  not  made  her  set 
great  store  by  false  values.  MacRae  was  sure  of  that. 
She  had  loved  him  simply  and  naturally,  with  an  al- 
most primitive  directness.  Spoiled  daughters  of  the 
leisure  class  are  not  so  simple  and  direct.  MacRae 
began  to  wonder  if  she  could  possibly  escape  resenting 
his  share  in  the  overturning  of  her  father's  fortunes, 
whereby  she  herself  must  suffer. 

By  the  time  MacRae  came  slowly  to  these  half-formed, 
disturbing  conclusions  he  was  already  upon  the  verge 
of  other  disturbing  discoveries  in  the  realm  of  material 
facts. 

For  obvious  reasons  he  could  not  walk  up  to  Gower's 
house  and  talk  to  Betty.  At  least  he  did  not  see 
how  he  could,  although  there  were  times  when  he  was 
tempted.  When  he  did  see  her  he  was  acutely  sensitive 
to  a  veiled  reproach  in  her  eyes,  a  courteous  distance 
in  her  speech.     She  came  off  the  beach  one  day  alone, 


276  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

a  few  minutes  after  MacRae  dropped  anchor  in  the 
usual  spot.  She  had  a  dozen  salmon  in  the  boat. 
When  she  came  alongside  MacRae  set  foot  over  the 
bulwark  with  intent  to  load  them  himself.  She  fore- 
stalled him  by  picking  the  salmon  up  and  heaving 
them  on  the  Blanco's  deck.  She  was  dressed  for  the 
work,  in  heavy  nailed  shoes,  a  flannel  blouse,  a  rough 
tweed  skirt. 

"  Oh,  say,  take  the  picaroon,  won't  you  ?  "  He  held  it 
out  to  her,  the  six-foot  wooden  shaft  with  a  slightly 
curving  point  of  steel  on  the  end. 

She  turned  on  him  with  a  salmon  dangling  by  the 
gills  from  her  fingers. 

"  You  don't  think  I  'm  afraid  to'  get  my  hands  dirty, 
do  you?"  she  asked.  "Me  —  a  fisherman's  daughter. 
Besides,  I'd  probably  miss  the  salmon  and  jab  that 
pointed  thing  through  the  bottom  of  the  boat." 

She  laughed  lightly,  with  no  particular  mirth  in  her 
voice.  And  MacRae  was  stricken  dumb.  She  was 
angry.  He  knew  it,  felt  it  intuitively.  Angry  at  him, 
warning  him  to  keep  his  distance.  He  watched  her 
dabble  her  hands  in  the  salt  chuck,  dry  them  coolly  on  a 
piece  of  burlap.  She  took  the  money  for  the  fish  with 
a  cool  "thanks"  and  rowed  back  to  shore. 

Jack  lay  in  his  bunk  that  night  blasted  by  a  gloomy 
sense  of  futility  in  everything.  He  had  succeeded  in 
his  undertaking  beyond  all  the  expectations  which  had 
spurred  him  so  feverishly  in  the  beginning.  But  there 
was  no  joy  in  it;  not  when  Betty  Gower  looked  at  him 
with  that  cold  gleam  in  her  gray  eyes.  Yet  he  told 
himself  savagely  that  if  he  had  to  take  his  choice  he 
would  not  have  done  otherwise.  And  when  he  had  ac- 
complished the  last  move  in  his  plan  and  driven  Gower 
off  the  island,  then  he  would  have  a  chance  to  forget 


TOP  DOG  277 

that  such  people  had  ever  existed  to  fill  a  man's  days 
with  unhappiness.  That,  it  seemed  to  him,  must  be  the 
final  disposition  of  this  problem  whicli  his  father  and 
Horace  Gower  and  Elizabeth  Morton  had  set  for  him 
years  before  he  was  bom. 

There  came  a  burst  of  afternoon  westerlies  which 
blew  small  hurricanes  from  noon  to  sundown.  But 
there  was  always  fishing  under  the  broad  lee  of  the 
cliffs.  The  Bltiebird  continued  to  scuttle  from  one  out- 
lying point  to  another,  and  the  Blanco  wallowed  down 
to  Crow  Harbor  every  other  day  with  her  hold  crammed. 
When  she  was  not  under  way  and  the  sea  was  fit  the 
big  carrier  rode  at  anchor  in  the  kelp  close  by  Poor 
Man's  Rock,  convenient  for  the  trollers  to  come  along- 
side and  deliver  when  they  chose.  There  were  squalls 
that  blew  up  out  of  nowhere  and  drove  them  all  to 
cover.  There  were  days  when  a  dead  swell  rolled  and 
the  trolling  boats  dipped  and  swung  and  pointed  their 
bluff  bows  skyward  as  they  climbed  the  green  moun- 
tains,^—  for  the  salmon  strike  when  a  sea  is  on,  and  a 
t roller  runs  from  heavy  weather  only  when  he  can  no 
longer  handle  his  gear. 

MacRae  was  much  too  busy  to  brood  long  at  a  time. 
The  phenomenal  run  of  blueback  still  held,  with  here 
and  there  the  hook-nosed  coho  coming  in  stray  schools. 
He  had  a  himdred  and  forty  fishermen  to  care  for  in 
the  matter  of  taking  their  catch,  keeping  them  supplied 
with  fuel,  bringing  them  foodstuffs  such  as  they  de- 
sired. The  Blanca  came  up  from  Vancouver  sometimes 
as  heavily  loaded  as  when  she  went  down.  But  he  wel- 
comed the  work  because  it  kept  him  from  too  intense 
thinking.  He  shepherded  his  seafaring  flock  for  his 
profit  and  theirs  alike  and  poured  salmon  by  tens  of 
thousands  into  the  macliines  at  Crow  Harbor,  —  red 


278  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

meat  to  be  preserved  in  tin  cans  which  in  months  to 
come  should  feed  the  hungry  in  the  far  places  of  the 
earth. 

MacRae  sometimes  had  the  strange  fancy  of  being 
caught  in  a  vast  machine  for  feeding  the  world,  a 
machine  which  did  not  reckon  such  factors  as  pain  and 
sorrow  in  its  remorseless  functioning.  Men  could  live 
without  love  or  ease  or  content.  They  could  not  sur- 
vive without  food. 

He  came  up  to  Squitty  one  bright  afternoon  when 
the  sea  was  flat  and  still,  unliarassed  by  the  westerly. 
The  Cove  was  empty.  All  the  fleet  was  scattered  over 
a  great  area.  The  Bluebird  was  somewhere  on  her 
rounds.  MacRae  dropped  the  Blanco's  hook  in  the 
middle  of  Cradle  Bay,  a  spot  he  seldom  chose  for 
anchorage.  But  he  had  a  purpose  in  this.  When  the 
bulky  carrier  swung  head  to  the  faint  land  breeze  Mac- 
Rae was  sitting  on  his  berth  in  the  pilot  house,  glancing 
over  a  letter  he  held  in  his  hand.  It  was  from  a  land- 
dealing  firm  in  Vancouver.  One  paragraph  is  sufiiciently 
illuminating : 

In  regard  to  the  purchase  of  this  Squitty  Island 
property  we  beg  to  advise  you  that  Mr.  Gower,  after 
some  correspondence,  states  distinctly  that  while  he  is 
willing  to  dispose  of  this  property  he  will  only  deal 
directly  with  a  bona  fide  purchaser. 

We  therefore  suggest  that  you  take  the  matter  up 
with  Mr.  Gower  personally. 

MacRae  put  the  sheet  back  in  its  envelope.  He 
stared  thoughtfully  through  an  open  window  which 
gave  on  shore  and  cottage.  He  could  see  Gower  sitting 
on  the  porch,  the  thick  bulk  of  the  man  clean-cut  against 
the  white  wall.     As  he  looked  he  saw  Betty  go  across 


TOP  DOG  279 

the  untrimmed  lawn,  up  the  path  that  ran  along  the 
cliffs,  and  pass  slowly  out  of  sight  among  the  stimted, 
wind-twisted  firs. 

He  walked  to  the  after  deck,  laid  hold  of  the  dinghy, 
and  slid  it  overboard.  Five  minutes  later  he  had  beached 
it  and  was  walking  up  the  gravel  path  to  the  house. 

He  was  conscious  of  a  queer  irritation  against  Gower. 
If  he  were  willing  to  sell  tlie  place,  why  did  he  sit  like 
a  spider  in  his  web  and  demand  that  victims  come  to 
him.?  MacRae  was  wary,  distrustful,  suspicious,  as  he 
walked  up  the  slope.  Some  of  the  old  rancor  revived 
in  him.  Gower  might  have  a  shaft  in  his  quiver  yet, 
and  the  will  to  use  it. 


CHAPTER   XX 
The  Dead  and  Dusty  Past 

GowER  sat  in  a  deep  grass  chair,  a  pipe  sagging  one 
comer  of  his  mouth,  his  slippered  feet  crossed  on  a  low 
stool.  His  rubber  sea  boots  lay  on  the  porch  floor  as 
if  he  had  but  discarded  them.  MacRae  took  in  every 
detail  of  his  appearance  in  one  photographic  glance,  as 
a  man  will  when  his  gaze  rests  upon  another  with  whom 
he  may  be  about  to  clash. 

Gower  no  longer  resembled  the  well-fed  plutocrat. 
He  scarcely  seemed  the  same  man  who,  nearly  two  years 
before,  had  absently  bestowed  upon  MacRae  a  dollar  for 
an  act  of  simple  courtesy.  He  wore  nondescript  trousers 
which  betrayed  a  shrunken  abdominal  line,  a  blue  flannel 
shirt  that  bared  his  short,  thick  neck.  And  in  that  par- 
ticular moment,  at  least,  the  habitual  sullenness  of  his 
heavy  face  was  not  in  evidence.  He  looked  placid  in 
spite  of  the  fiery  redness  which  sun  and  wind  had 
burned  into  his  skin.  He  betrayed  no  surprise  at 
MacRae's  coming.  The  placidity  of  his  blue  eyes  did 
not  alter  in  any  degree. 

"  Hello,  MacRae,"  he  said. 

"  How  d'  do,"  MacRae  answered.  "  I  came  to  speak 
to  you  about  a  little  matter  of  business." 

"  Yes  ?  "  Gower  rumbled.  "  I  've  been  sort  of  expect- 
ing you." 

"  Oh  ?  "      MacRae   failed   to    conceal   altogether   his 


THE  DEAD  AND  DUSTY  PAST  281 

surprise  at  this  statement.  "  I  understand  you  are 
willing  to  sell  this  place.     I  want  to  buy  it." 

"  It  was  yours  once,  was  n't  it.''  " 

The  words  were  more  of  a  comment  than  a  question, 
but  MacRae  answered : 

"  You  know  that,  I  think." 

"And  you  want  it  back?" 

"  Naturally." 

*'  If  that 's  what  you  want,"  Gower  said  slowly. 
"I '11  see  you  in " 

He  cut  off  the  sentence.  His  round  stomach  —  less 
round  by  far  than  it  had  been  two  months  earlier  — 
shook  with  silent  laughter.  His  eyes  twinkled.  His 
thick,  stubby  fingers  drummed  on  the  chair  arm. 

MacRae's  face  grew  hot.  He  recognized  the  unfin- 
ished sentence  as  one  of  his  own,  words  he  had  flung  in 
Gower's  face  not  so  long  since.  If  that  was.  the  way  of 
it  he  could  save  his  breath.    He  turned  silently. 

"Wait." 

He  faced  about  at  the  changed  quality  of  Gower's 
tone.  The  amused  expression  had  vanished.  Gower 
leaned  forward  a  little.  There  was  something  very 
like  appeal  in  his  expression.  MacRae  was  suddenly 
conscious  of  facing  a  still  different  man,  —  an  oldish, 
fat  man  with  thinning  hair  and  tired,  wistful  eyes. 

"I  just  happened  to  think  of  what  you  said  to  me 
not  long  ago,"  Gower  explained.  "  It  struck  me  as 
funny.  But  that  isn't  how  I  feel.  If  you  want  this 
land  you  can  have  it.  Take  a  chair.  Sit  down.  I 
want  to  talk  to  you." 

"  There  is  nothing  the  matter  with  my  legs,"  MacRae 
said  shortly.  "  I  do  want  this  land.  I  will  pay  you  the 
price  you  paid  for  it,  in  cash,  when  you  execute  a  legal 
transfer.     Is  that  satisfactory.?" 


282  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

"What  about  this  house?"  Gower  asked  casually. 
"It's  worth  something,  isn't  it?  " 

"  Not  to  me,"  MacRae  replied.  "  I  don't  want  the 
house.    You  can  take  it  away  with  you,  if  you  like." 

Gower  looked  at  him  thoughtfully. 

"  The  Scotch,"  he  said,  "  cherish  a  grudge  like  a 
family  heirloom." 

"Perhaps  they  do,"  MacRae  answered.  "Why 
not?  If  you  knock  a  man  down  you  don't  expect  him 
to  jump  up  and  shake  hands  with  you.  You  had  your 
inning.     It  was  a  long  one." 

"I  wonder,"  Gower  said  slowly,  "why  old  Donald 
MacRae  kept  his  mouth  closed  to  you  about  trouble 
between  us  until  he  was  ready  to  die?  " 

"How  do  you  know  he  did  that?"  MacRae  de- 
manded harshly. 

"The  night  you  came  to  ask  for  the  Arrow  to  take 
him  to  town  you  had  no  such  feeling  against  me  as  you 
have  had  since,"  Gower  said.  "I  know  you  didn't. 
You  would  n't  have  come  if  you  had.  I  cut  no  figure  in 
your  eyes,  oue  way  or  the  other,  until  after  he  was  dead. 
So  he  must  have  told  you  at  the  very  last.  What  did 
he  tell  you?  Why  did  he  have  to  pass  that  old  poison 
on  to  another  generation?" 

"Why  shouldn't  he?"  MacRae  demanded.  "You 
made  his  life  a  failure.  You  put  a  scar  on  his  face  — 
I  can  remember  when  I  was  a  youngster  wondering  how 
he  got  that  mark  —  I  remember  how  it  stood  like  a 
ridge  across  his  cheek  bone  when  he  was  dead.  You 
put  a  scar  upon  his  soul  that  no  one  but  himself  ever 
saw  or  felt  —  except  as  I  have  been  able  to  feel  it  since 
I  knew.  You  weren't  satisfied  with  that.  You  had  to 
keep  on  throwing  your  weight  against  him  for  thirty 
years.    You  did  n't  even  stop  when  the  war  made  every- 


THE  DEAD  AND  DUSTY  PAST  283 

thing  seem  different.  You  might  have  let  up  then.  We 
were  doing  our  bit.  But  you  didn't.  You  kept  on 
until  you  had  deprived  him  of  everything  but  the  power 
to  row  around  the  Rock  day  after  day  and  take  a  few 
salmon  in  order  to  live.  You  made  a  pauper  of  him 
and  sat  here  gloating  over  it.  It  preyed  on  his  mind  to 
think  that  I  should  come  back  from  France  and  find  my- 
self a  beggar  because  he  was  unable  to  cope  with  you. 
He  lived  his  life  without  whimpering  to  me,  except  to 
say  he  did  not  like  you.  He  only  wrote  this  down  for 
me  to  read — -when  he  began  to  feel  that  he  would  never 
see  me  again  —  the  reasons  why  he  had  failed  in  every- 
thing, lost  everything.  When  I  pieced  out  the  story, 
from  the  day  you  used  your  pike  pole  to  knock  down  a 
man  whose  fighting  hands  were  tied  by  a  promise  to  a 
woman  he  loved,  from  then  till  the  last  cold-blooded 
maneuver  by  which  you  got  this  land  of  ours,  I  hated 
you,  and  I  set  out  to  pay  you  back  in  your  own  coin. 

"But,"  MacRae  continued  after  a  momentary  hesi- 
tation, "  that  is  not  what  I  came  here  to  say.  Talk  — 
talk 's  cheap.  I  would  rather  not  talk  about  these 
things,  or  think  of  them,  now.  I  want  to  buy  this  land 
from  you  if  you  are  willing  to  sell.    That 's  all." 

Gower  scarcely  seemed  to  hear  him.  He  was  nursing 
his  heavy  chin  with  one  hand,  looking  at  MacRae  with 
a  curious  concentration,  looking  at  him  and  seeing 
something  far  beyond. 

"  Hell ;  it  is  a  true  indictment,  up  to  a  certain  point," 
he  said  at  last.  "What  a  curse  misunderstanding  is 
—  and  pride !  By  God,  I  have  envied  your  father,  Mac- 
Rae, many  a  time.  I  struck  him  an  ugly  blow  once. 
Yes.  I  was  young  and  hot-headed,  and  I  was  burning 
with  jealousy.  But  I  did  him  a  good  turn  at  that,  I 
think.     I  —  oh,  well,  maybe  you  wouldn't  understand. 


284  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

I  suppose  you  wouldn't  believe  me  if  I  say  I  didn't 
swoop  down  on  him  every  time  I  got  a  chance;  that  I 
didn't  bushwhack  —  no  matter  if  he  believed  I  did." 

"No?"  MacRae  said  incredulously.  "You  didn't 
break  up  a  logging  venture  on  the  Claha  when  he  had  a 
chance  to  make  a  stake.?  You  didn't  show  your  fine 
Italian  hand  in  that  marble  quarry  undertaking  on 
Texada.?  Nor  other  things  that  I  could  name  as  he 
named  them.  Why  crawl  now.?  It  doesn't  matter. 
I  'm  not  swinging  a  club  over  your  head." 

Gower  shook  himself. 

"  No,"  he  declared  slowly.  "  He  interfered  with  the 
Morton  interests  in  that  Claha  logging  camp,  and  they 
did  whatever  was  done.  The  quarry  business  I  know 
nothing  about,  except  that  I  had  business  dealings  with 
the  people  whom  he  ran  foul  of.  I  tell  you,  MacRae, 
after  the  first  short  period  of  time  when  I  was  afire  with 
the  fury  of  jealousy,  I  did  not  do  these  things.  I  did  n't 
even  want  to  do  them.  I  wish  you  would  get  that 
straight.  I  wanted  Bessie  Morton  and  I  got  her.  That 
was  an  issue  between  us,  I  grant.  I  gained  my  point 
there.  I  would  have  gone  farther  to  gain  that  point. 
But  I  paid  for  it.  It  was  not  so  long  before  I  knew  that 
I  was  going  to  pay  dearly  for  it.  I  tell  you  I  came  to 
envy  Donald  MacRae.  I  don't  know  if  he  nursed  a 
disappointment  —  which  I  came  to  know  was  an  illu- 
sion. Perhaps  he  did.  But  he  had  nothing  real  to  re- 
gret, nothing  to  prick,  prick  him  all  the  time.  He 
married  a  woman  who  seemed  to  care  for  him.  At  any 
rate,  she  respected  him  and  was  a  mate,  living  his  life 
while  she  did  live. 

"Look,  MacRae.  I  married  Bessie  Morton  because 
I  wanted  her,  wanted  her  on  any  terms.  She  didn't 
want  me.     She  wanted  Donald  MacRae.     But  she  had 


THE  DEAD  AND  DUSTY  PAST  285 

wanted  other  men.  That  was  the  way  she  was  made. 
She  was  facile.  And  she  never  loved  any  one  half  so 
much  as  she  loved  herself.  She  was  only  a  beautiful 
peacock  preening  her  feathers  and  sighing  for  homage. 
She  was  —  she  is  —  the  essence  of  self  from  the  top  of 
her  head  to  her  shoes.  Her  feelings,  her  wants,  her 
wishes,  her  whims,  her  two-by-four  outlook,  nothing  else 
counted.  She  couldn't  comprehend  anything  outside 
of  herself.  She  would  have  made  Donald  MacRae's  life 
a  misery  to  him  when  the  novelty  of  that  infatuation 
wore  off.  The  Mortons  are  like  that.  They  want  every- 
thing.    They  give  nothing. 

"  She  was  cowardly  too.  Do  you  think  two  old  men 
and  myself  would  have  taken  her,  or  anything  else, 
from  your  father  out  in  the  middle  of  the  Gulf,  if  she 
had  had  any  spirit?  You  knew  your  father.  He 
wasn't  a  tame  man.  He  would  have  fought — fought 
like  a  tiger.  We  might  have  killed  him.  It  is  more 
likely  that  he  would  have  killed  us.  But  we  could  not 
have  beaten  him.  But  she  had  to  knuckle  down  —  take 
the  easy  way  for  her.     She  cried,  and  he  promised." 

Gower  lay  back  in  his  chair.  His  chin  sunk  on  his 
breast.  He  spoke  slowly,  groping  for  his  words. 
MacRae  did  not  interrupt.  Something  compelled  him 
to  listen.  There  was  a  pained  ring  in  Gower's  voice 
that  held  him.  The  man  was  telling  him  these  things 
with  visible  reluctance,  with  a  simple  dignity  that  ar- 
rested him,  even  while  he  felt  that  he  should  not  listen. 

"She  used  to  taunt  me  with  that,"  he  went  on, 
**  taunt  me  with  striking  Donald  MacRae.  For  years 
after  we  were  married  she  used  to  do  that.  Long 
after  —  and  that  wasn't  so  long  —  she  had  ceased  to 
care  if  such  a  man  as  your  father  existed.  That  was 
only  an  episode  to  her,  of  which  she  was  snobbishly 


286  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

ashamed  in  time.  But  she  often  reminded  me  that  I  had 
struck  him  like  a  hardened  butcher,  because  she  knew 
she  could  hurt  me  with  that.  So  that  I  used  to  wish  to 
God  I  had  never  followed  her  out  into  the  Gulf. 

"  For  thirty  years  I  've  lived  and  worked  and  never 
known  any  real  satisfaction  in  living  —  or  happiness. 
I  've  played  the  game,  played  it  hard.  I  've  been  hard, 
they  say.  Probably  I  have.  I  didn't  care.  A  man 
had  to  walk  on  others  or  be  walked  on  himself.  I  made 
money.  Money  —  I  poured  it  into  her  hands,  like 
pouring  sand  in  a  rat-hole.  She  lived  for  herself,  her 
whims,  her  codfish-aristocracy  standards,  spending  my 
money  like  water  to  make  a  showing,  giving  me  nothing 
in  return,  nothing  but  whining  and  recrimination  if  I 
crossed  her  ever  so  little.  She  made  a  lap  dog  of  her 
son  the  first  twenty-five  years  of  his  life.  She  would 
have  made  Betty  a  cheap  imitation  of  herself.  But  she 
could  n't  do  that." 

He  stopped  a  moment  and  shook  Ins  head  gently. 

"  No,"  he  resumed,  "  she  could  n't  do  that.  There 's 
iron  in  that  girl.  She's  all  Gower.  I  think  I  should 
have  thrown  up  my  hands  long  ago  only  for  Betty's 
sake." 

MacRae  shifted  uneasily. 

"  You  see,"  Gower  continued,  "  my  life  has  been  a 
failure,  too.  When  Donald  MacRae  and  I  clashed,  I  pre- 
vailed. I  got  what  I  wanted.  But  it  was  only  a  shadow. 
There  was  no  substance.  It  didn't  do  me  any  good. 
I  have  made  money,  barrels  of  it,  and  that  has  not  done 
me  any  good.  I  've  been  successful  at  everything  I 
undertook  —  except  lately  —  but  succeeding  as  the 
world  reckons  success  has  n't  made  me  happy.  In  my 
personal  life  I  've  been  a  damned  failure.  I  've  always 
been  aware  of  that.    And  if  I  have  held  a  feeling  toward 


THE  DEAD  AND  DUSTY  PAST  287 

Donald  MacRae  these  thirty-odd  years,  it  was  a  feeling 
of  envy.  I  would  have  traded  places  with  him  and  been 
the  gainer.  I  would  have  liked  to  tell  him  so.  But  I 
could  n't.  He  was  a  dour  Scotchman  and  I  suppose  he 
hated  me,  although  he  kept  it  to  himself.  I  suppose  he 
loved  Bessie.  I  know  I  did.  Perhaps  he  cherished 
hatred  of  me  for  wrecking  his  dream,  and  so  saw  my 
hand  in  things  where  it  never  was.  But  he  was  wrong. 
Bessie  would  have  wrecked  it  and  him  too.  She  would 
have  whined  and  sniffled  about  being  a  poor  man's  wife, 
once  she  learned  what  it  was  to  be  poor.  She  could 
never  understand  anything  but  a  silk-lined  existence. 
She  loved  herself  and  her  own  illusion"^.  She  would  have 
driven  him  mad  with  her  petty  whims,  her  petty  emo- 
tions. She  doesn't  know  the  meaning  of  loyalty,  con- 
sideration, or  even  an  open,  honest  hatred.  And  I've 
stood  it  all  these  years  —  because  I  don't  shirk  respon- 
sibilities, and  I  had  brought  it  on  myself." 

He  stopped  a  second,  staring  out  across  the  Gulf. 

"  But  apart  from  that  one  thing,  I  never  consciously 
or  deliberately  wronged  Donald  MacRae.  He  may  hon- 
estly have  believed  I  did.  I  have  the  name  of  being 
hard.  I  dare  say  I  am.  The  world  is  a  hard  place. 
When  I  had  to  choose  between  walking  on  a  man's  face 
and  having  my  own  walked  on,  I  never  hesitated.  There 
was  nothing  much  to  make  me  soft.  I  moved  along  the 
same  lines  as  most  of  the  men  I  know. 

"  But,  I  repeat,  I  never  put  a  straw  in  your  father's 
way.  I  know  that  things  went  against  him.  I  could 
see  that.  I  knew  why,  too.  He  was  too  square  for  his 
time  and  place.  He  trusted  men  too  much.  You  can't 
always  do  that.  He  was  too  scrupulously  honest.  He 
always  gave  the  other  fellow  the  best  of  it.  That  alone 
beat  him.     He  didn't  always  consider  his  own  interest 


288  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

and  follow  up  every  advantage.  I  don't  think  he  cared 
to  scramble  for  money,  as  a  man  must  scramble  for  it 
these  days.  He  could  have  held  this  place  if  he  had 
cast  about  for  ways  to  do  so.  There  were  plenty  of 
loopholes.  But  he  had  that  old-fashioned  honor  which 
doesn't  seek  loopholes.  He  had  borrowed  money  on 
it.  He  would  have  taken  the  coat  off  his  back,  beggared 
himself  any  day  to  pay  a  debt.    Isn't  that  right .^^ " 

MacRae  nodded. 

"  So  this  place  came  into  my  hands.  It  was  deliber- 
ate on  my  part  —  but  only,  mind  you,  when  I  knew 
that  he  was  bound  to  lose  it.  Perhaps  it  was  bad  judg- 
ment on  my  part.  I  didn't  think  that  he  would  see  it 
as  an  end  I  'd  been  working  for.  As  I  grew  older,  I 
found  myself  wanting  now  and  then  to  wipe  out  that  old 
score  between  us.  I  would  have  given  a  good  deal  to  sit 
down  with  him  over  a  pipe.  A  woman,  who  was  n't  much 
as  women  go,  had  made  us  both  suffer.  So  I  built  this 
cottage  and  came  here  to  stay  now  and  then.  I  liked 
the  place.  I  liked  to  think  that  now  he  and  I  were  get- 
ting to  be  old  men,  we  could  be  friends.  But  he  was 
too  bitter.  And  I  'm  human.  I  've  got  a  bit  of  pride. 
I  couldn't  crawl.  So  I  never  got  nearer  to  him  than  to 
see  him  rowing  around  the  Rock.  And  he  died  full  of 
that  bitterness.  I  don't  like  to  think  of  that.  Still, 
it  cannot  be  helped.  Do  you  grasp  this,  MacRae?  Do 
you  believe  me  ?  " 

Incredible  as  it  seemed,  MacRae  had  no  choice  but 
to  accept  that  explanation  of  strangely  twisted  motives, 
those  misapprehensions,  the  murky  cloud  of  misunder- 
standing. The  tone  of  Gower's  voice,  his  attitude,  car- 
ried supreme  conviction.     And  still  — 

"  Yes,"  he  said  at  last.  "  It  is  all  a  contradiction  of 
things  I  have  been  passionately  sure  of  for  nearly  two 


THE  DEAD  AND  DUSTY  PAST  289 

years.  But  I  can  see^ — yes,  it  must  be  as  you  say. 
I'm  sorry." 

"Sorry.?    For  what?"  Gower  regarded  him  soberly. 

"  Many  things.    Why  did  you/  tell  me  this  ?  " 

"Why  should  the  anger  and  bitterness  of  two  old 
men  be  passed  on  to  their  children  ?  "  Gower  asked  him 
gently. 

MacRae  stared  at  him.  Did  he  know.?  Had  he 
guessed.?  Had  Betty  told  him.?  He  wondered.  It  was 
not  like  Betty  to  have  spoken  of  what  had  passed  be- 
tween them.  Yet  he  did  not  know  how  close  a  bond 
might  exist  between  this  father  and  daughter,  who  were, 
MacRae  was  beginning  to  perceive,  most  singularly 
ahke.  And  this  was  a  shrewd  old  man,  sadly  wise  in 
human  weaknesses,  and  much  more  tolerant  than  Mac- 
Rae had  conceived  possible.  He  felt  a  little  ashamed 
of  the  malice  with  which  he  had  fought  this  battle  of  the 
salmon  around  Squitty  Island.  Yet  Gower  by  his  own 
admission  was  a  hard  man.  He  had  lived  with  a  com- 
mercial sword  in  his  hand.  He  knew  what  it  was  to  fall 
by  that  weapon.  He  had  been  hard  on  the  fishermen. 
He  had  exploited  them  mercilessly.  Therein  lay  his 
weakness,  whereby  he  had  fallen,  through  which  Mac- 
Rae had  beaten  him.  But  had  he  beaten  him.?  MacRae 
was  not  now  so  sure  about  that.  But  it  was  only  a 
momentary  doubt.  He  struggled  a  little  against  the 
reaction  of  kindliness,  this  curious  sympathy  for  Gower 
which  moved  him  now.  He  hated  sentimentalism,  facile 
yielding  to  shallow  emotions.  He  wanted  to  talk  and 
he  was  dumb.  Dumb  for  appropriate  words,  because 
his  mind  kept  turning  with  passionate  eagerness  upon 
Betty  Gower. 

"Does  Betty  know  what  you  have  just  told  me.?" 
he  asked  at  last. 


290  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

Gower  shook  his  head. 

"  She  knows  there  is  something.  I  can't  tell  her.  I 
don't  like  to.  It  isn't  a  nice  story.  I  don't  shine  in 
it  —  nor  her  mother." 

"  Nor  do  I,"  MacRae  muttered  to  himself. 

He  stood  looking  over  the  porch  rail  down  on  the 
sea  where  the  Blanco  swung  at  her  anchor  chain.  There 
seemed  nothing  more  to  say.  Yet  he  was  aware  of 
Gower's  eyes  upon  him  with  something  akin  to  expec- 
tancy.   An  uncertain  smile  flitted  across  MacRae's  face. 

"  This  has  sort  of  put  me  on  my  beam  ends,"  he 
said,  using  a  sailor's  phrase.  "  Don't  you  feel  as  if 
I  'd  rather  done  you  up  these  two  seasons  ?  " 

Gower's  heavy  features  lightened  with  a  grimace  of 
amusement. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  "  you  certainly  cost  me  a  lot  of 
money,  one  way  and  another.  But  you  had  the  nerve 
to  go  at  it  —  and  you  used  better  judgment  of  men  and 
conditions  than  anybody  has  manifested  in  the  salmon 
business  lately,  unless  it 's  young  Abbott.  So  I  sup- 
pose you  are  entitled  to  win  on  your  merits.  By  the 
way,  there  is  one  condition  tacked  to  selling  you  this 
ranch.  I  hesitated  about  bringing  it  up  at  first.  I 
would  like  to  keep  this  cottage  and  a  strip  of  ground  a 
hundred  and  fifty  feet  wide  running  down  to  the  beach." 

"All  right,"  MacRae  agreed.  "We  can  arrange 
that  later.    I  '11  come  again." 

He  set  foot  on  the  porch  steps.  Then  he  turned 
back.  A  faint  flush  stole  up  in  his  sun-browned  face. 
He  held  out  his  hand. 

"  Shall  we  cry  quits  ?  "  he  asked.  "  Shall  we  shake 
hands  and  forget  it?  " 

Gower  rose  to  his  feet.  He  did  not  say  anything, 
but  the  grip  in  his  thick,  stubby  fingers  almost  made 


THE  DEAD  AND  DUSTY  PAST  291 

Jack  MacRae  wince,  —  and  he  was  a  strong-handed 
man  himself. 

"I'm  glad  you  came  to-day,"  Gower  said  huskily. 
"  Come  again  —  soon." 

He  stood  on  the  porch  and  watched  MacRae  stride 
down  to  the  beach  and  put  off  in  his  dinghy.  Then  he 
took  out  a  handkerchief  and  blew  his  nose  with  a  tre- 
mendous amount  of  unnecessary  noise  and  gesture. 
There  was  something  suspiciously  like  moisture  bright- 
ening his  eyes. 

But  when  he  saw  MacRae  stand  in  the  dinghy  along- 
side the  Blanco  and  speak  briefly  to  his  men,  then  row 
in  under  Point  Old  behind  Poor  Man's  Rock  which  the 
tide  was  slowly  baring,  when  he  climbed  up  over  the 
Point  and  took  the  path  along  the  cliff  edge,  that  sus- 
picious brightness  in  Gower's  keen  old  eyes  was  replaced 
by  a  twinkle.  He  sat  down  in  his  grass  chair  and 
hummed  a  little  tune,  the  while  one  slippered  foot  kept 
time,  rat-a-pat,  on  the  floor  of  the  porch. 


CHAPTER    XXI 

As  IT  Was  in  the  Beginneng 

MacRae  followed  the  path  along  the  cliffs.  He  did  not 
look  for  Betty.  His  mind  was  on  something  else,  en- 
grossed in  considerations  which  had  little  to  do  with 
love.  If  it  be  true  that  a  man  keeps  his  lovest  and  hates 
and  hobbies  and  ambitions  and  appetites  in  separate 
chambers,  any  of  which  may  be  for  a  time  so  locked  that 
what  lies  therein  neither  troubles  nor  pleases  him,  then 
that  chamber  in  which  he  kept  Betty  Gower's  image 
was  hermetically  sealed.  Her  figure  was  obscured 
by  other  figures,  —  his  father  and  Horace  Gower  and 
himself. 

Not  until  he  had  reached  the  Cove's  head  and  come 
to  his  own  house  did  he  recall  that  Betty  had  gone 
along  the  cliffs,  and  that  he  had  not  seen  her  as  he 
passed.  But  that  could  easily  happen,  he  knew,  in  that 
mile  stretch  of  trees  and  thickets,  those  deep  clefts  and 
pockets  in  the  rocky  wall  that  frowned  upon  the  sea. 

He  went  into  the  house.  Out  of  a  box  on  a  shelf  in 
his  room  he  took  the  message  his  father  had  left  him 
and  sitting  down  in  the  shadowy  coolness  of  the  outer 
room  began  to  read  it  again,  slowly,  with  infinite  care 
for  the  reality  his  father  had  meant  to  convey. 

All  his  life,  as  Jack  remembered  him,  Donald  MacRae 
had  been  a  silent  man,  who  never  talked  of  how  he  felt, 
how  things  affected  him,  who  never  was  stricken  with 
that  irresistible  impulse  to  explain  and  discuss,  to  re- 


AS  IT  WAS  IN  THE  BEGINNING        293 

lieve  his  troubled  soul  with  words,  which  afflicts  so 
many  men.  It  seemed  as  if  he  had  saved  it  all  for  that 
final  summing-up  which  was  to  be  delivered  by  his  pen 
instead  of  his  lips.  He  had  become  articulate  only  at 
the  last.  It  must  have  taken  him  weeks  upon  weeks  to 
write  it  all  down,  this  autobiography  which  had  been 
the  mainspring  of  his  son's  actions  for  nearly  two  years. 
There  was  wind  and  sun  in  it,  and  blue  sky  and  the  gray 
Gulf  heaving;  somber  colors,  passion  and  grief,  an 
apology  and  a  justification. 

MacRae  laid  down  the  last  page  and  went  outside 
to  sit  on  the  steps.  Shadows  were  gathering  on  the 
Cove.  Far  out,  the  last  gleam  of  the  sun  was  touching 
the  Gulf.  A  slow  swell  was  rising  before  some  far, 
unheralded  wind.  The  Blanco  came  gliding  in  and 
dropped  anchor.  Trollers  began  to  follow.  They 
clustered  about  the  big  carrier  like  chickens  under  the 
mother  wing.  By  these  signs  MacRae  knew  that  the 
fish  had  stopped  biting,  that  it  was  lumpy  by  Poor 
Man's  Rock.  He  knew  there  was  work  aboard.  But 
he  sat  there,  absent-eyed,  thinking. 

He  was  full  of  understanding  pity  for  his  father, 
and  also  for  Horace  Gower.  He  was  conscious  of  being 
a  little  sorry  for  himself.  But  then  he  had  only  been 
troubled  a  short  two  years  by  this  curious  aftermath 
of  old  passions,  whereas  they  had  suffered  all  their 
lives.  He  had  got  a  new  angle  from  which  to  approach 
his  father's  story.  He  knew  now  that  he  had  reacted 
to  something  that  was  not  there.  He  had  been  filled 
with  a  thirst  for  vengeance,  for  reprisal,  and  he  had 
declared  war  on  Gower,  when  that  was  not  his  father's 
intent.  Old  Donald  MacRae  had  hated  Gower  pro- 
foundly in  the  beginning.  He  believed  that  Gower 
hated  him  and  had  put  the  weight  of  his  power  against 


294  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

him,  wherever  and  whenever  he  could.  But  life  itself 
had  beaten  him,  —  and  not  Gower.  That  was  what  he 
had  been  trying  to  tell  his  son. 

And  life  itself  had  beaten  Gower  in  a  strangely  similar 
fashion.  He  too  was  old,  a  tired,  disappointed  man. 
He  had  reached  for  material  success  with  one  hand  and 
happiness  with  the  other.  One  had  always  eluded  him. 
The  other  Jack  MacRae  had  helped  wrest  from  him. 
MacRae  could  see  Gower's  life  in  detached  pictures,  life 
that  consisted  of  making  money  and  spending  it,  life 
with  a  woman  who  whined  and  sniffled  and  complained. 
These  things  had  been  a  slow  torture.  MacRae  could 
no  longer  regard  this  man  as  a  squat  ogre,  merciless, 
implacable,  ready  and  able  to  crush  whatsoever  opposed 
him.  He  was  only  a  short,  fat,  oldish  man  with  tired 
eyes,  who  had  been  bruised  by  forces  he  could  not  under- 
stand or  cope  with  until  he  had  achieved  a  wistful  toler- 
ance for  both  things  and  men. 

Both  these  old  men,  MacRae  perceived,  had  made  a 
terrible  hash  of  their  lives.  Neither  of  them  had  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  out  of  life  much  that  a  man  instinc- 
tively feels  that  he  should  get.  Both  had  been  capable 
of  happiness.  Both  had  struggled  for  happiness  as  all 
men  struggle.  Neither  had  ever  securely  grasped  any 
measure  of  it,  nor  even  much  of  content. 

MacRae  felt  a  chilly  uncertainty  as  he  sat  on  his 
doorstep  considering  this.  He  had  been  traveling  the 
same  road  for  many  months, — 'denying  his  natural 
promptings,  stifling  a  natural  passion,  surrendering 
himself  to  an  obsession  of  vindictiveness,  planning  and 
striving  to  return  evil  for  what  he  conceived  to  be  evil, 
and  being  himself  corrupted  by  the  corrosive  forces  of 
hatred. 

He  had  been  diligently  bestowing  pain  on  Betty,  who 


AS  IT  WAS  IN  THE  BEGINNING        295 

loved  him  quite  openly  and  frankly  as  he  desired  to  be 
loved;  Betty,  who  was  innocent  of  these  old  coils  of 
bitterness,  who  was  primitive  enough  in  her  emotions, 
MacRae  suspected,  to  let  nothing  stand  between  her 
and  her  chosen  mate  when  that  mate  beckoned. 

But  she  was  proud.  He  knew  that  he  had  puzzled 
her  to  the  point  of  anger,  hurt  her  in  a  woman's  most 
vital  spot. 

"  I  've  been  several  kinds  of  a  fool,"  MacRae  said  to 
himself.     "I  have  been  fooling  myself." 

He  had  said  to  himself  once,  in  a  somber  mood,  that 
life  was  nothing  but  a  damned  dirty  scramble  in  which 
a  man  could  be  sure  of  getting  hurt.  But  it  struck 
him  now  that  he  had  been  sedulously  inflicting  those 
hurts  upon  himself.  Nature  cannot  be  flouted.  She 
exacts  terrible  penalties  for  the  stifling,  the  inliibition, 
the  deflection  of  normal  instincts,  fundamental  impulses. 
He  perceived  the  operation  of  this  in  his  father's  life, 
in  the  thirty  years  of  petty  conflict  between  Horace 
Gower  and  his  wife.  And  he  had  unconsciously  been 
putting  himself  and  Betty  in  the  way  of  similar  penal- 
ties by  exalting  revenge  for  old,  partly  imagined  wrongs 
above  that  strange  magnetic  sometliing  which  drew  them 
together. 

Twilight  was  at  hand.  Looking  through  the  maple 
and  alder  fringe  before  his  house  MacRae  saw  the  fish- 
ing boats  coming  one  after  the  other,  clustering  about 
the  Blanco.  He  went  down  and  slid  the  old  green  dug- 
out afloat  and  so  gained  the  deck  of  his  vessel.  For  an 
hour  thereafter  he  worked  steadily  until  all  the  salmon 
were  delivered  and  stowed  in  the  Blanco^s  chilly  hold. 

^e  found  it  hard  to  keep  his  mind  on  the  count  of 
salmon,  on  money  to  be  paid  each  man,  upon  these  com- 
mon details  of  his  business.     His  thought  reached  out 


296  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

in  wide  circles,  embracing  many  things,  many  persons : 
Norman  Gower  and  Dolly,  who  had  had  courage  to  put 
the  past  behind  them  and  reach  for  happiness  together ; 
Stubby  Abbott  and  Etta  Robbin-Steele,  who  were  being 
flung  together  by  the  same  inscrutable  forces  within 
them.  Love  might  not  truly  make  the  world  go  round, 
but  it  was  a  tremendous  motive  power  in  human  actions. 
Like  other  dynamic  forces  it  had  its  dangerous  phases. 
Love,  as  MacRae  had  experienced  it,  was  a  curious 
mixture  of  affection  and  desire,  of  flaming  passion  and 
infinite  tenderness.  Betty  Gower  warmed  him  like  a 
living  flame  when  he  let  her  take  possession  of  his 
thought.  She  was  all  that  his  fancy  could  conjure  as 
desirable.  She  was  his  mate.  He  had  felt  that,  at 
times,  with  a  conviction  beyond  reason  or  logic  ever 
since  the  night  he  kissed  her  in  the  Granada.  If  fate, 
or  the  circumstances  he  had  let  involve  him,  should 
juggle  them  apart,  he  felt  that  the  years  would  lead 
him  down  long,  drab  corridors. 

And  he  was  suddenly  determined  that  should  not 
happen.  His  imagination  flung  before  him  kinetoscopic 
flashes  of  what  his  father's  life  had  been  and  Horace 
Gower's.  That  vision  appalled  MacRae.  He  would  not 
let  it  happen,  —  not  to  him  and  Betty. 

He  washed,  ate  his  supper,  lay  on  his  bunk  in  the 
pilot  house  and  smoked  a  cigarette.  Then  he  went  out 
on  deck.  The  moon  crept  up  in  a  cloudless  sky,  dim- 
ming the  stars.  There  was  no  wind  about  the  island. 
But  there  was  wind  loose  somewhere  on  the  Gulf.  The 
glass  was  falling.  The  swells  broke  more  heavily  along 
the  cliffs.  At  the  mouth  of  the  Cove  white  sheets  of 
spray  lifted  as  each  comber  reared  and  broke  in  that 
narrow  place. 

He  recollected  that  he  had  left  the  Blanco's  dinghy 


AS  IT  WAS  IN  THE  BEGINNING        297 

hauled  up  on  the  beach  on  the  tip  of  Point  Old.  He 
got  ashore  now  in  the  green  dugout  and  walked  across 
to  the  Point. 

A  man  is  seldom  wholly  single-track  in  his  ideas,  his 
impulses.  MacRae  thought  of  the  dinghy.  He  had  a 
care  for  its  possible  destruction  by  the  rising  sea.  But 
he  thought  also  of  Betty.  There  was  a  pleasure  in 
simply  looking  at  the  house  in  which  she  lived.  Lights 
glowed  in  the  windows.  The  cottage  glistened  in  the 
moonlight. 

When  he  came  out  on  the  tip  of  the  Point  the  dinghy, 
he  saw,  lay  safe  where  he  had  dragged  it  up  on  the 
rocks.  And  when  he  had  satisfied  himself  of  this  he 
stood  with  hands  thrust  deep  in  his  pockets,  looking 
down  on  Poor  Man's  Rock,  watching  the  swirl  and 
foam  as  each  swell  ran  over  its  sunken  head. 

MacRae  had  a  subconscious  perception  of  beauty, 
beauty  of  form  and  color.  It  moved  him  without  his 
knowing  why.  He  was  in  a  mood  to  respond  to  beauty 
this  night.  He  had  that  buoyant,  grateful  feeling  which 
comes  to  a  man  when  he  has  escaped  some  great  disaster, 
when  he  is  suddenly  freed  from  some  grim  apprehension 
of  the  soul. 

The  night  was  one  of  wonderful  beauty.  The  moon 
laid  its  silver  path  across  the  sea.  The  oily  swells  came 
up  that  moon-path  in  undulating  folds  to  break  in  silver 
fragments  along  the  shore.  The  great  island  beyond 
the  piercing  shaft  of  the  Ballenas  light  and  the  main- 
land far  to  his  left  lifted  rugged  mountains  sharp 
against  the  sky.  From  tlie  southeast  little  fluffs  of 
cloud,  little  cottony  flecks  white  as  virgin  snow,  sailed 
before  the  wind  that  mothered  the  swells.  But  there 
was  no  wind  on  Squitty  yet.  There  was  breathless  still- 
ness except  for  the  low,  spaced  mutter  of  the  surf. 


298  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

He  stood  a  long  time,  drinking  in  the  beauty  of  it 
all,  —  the  sea  and  the  moon-path,  and  the  hushed,  dark 
woods  behind. 

Then  his  gaze,  turning  slowly,  fell  on  something 
white  in  the  shadow  of  a  bushy,  wind-distorted  fir  a  few 
feet  away.  He  looked  more  closely.  His  eyes  gradually 
made  out  a  figure  in  a  white  sweater  sitting  on  a  flat 
rock,  elbows  on  knees,  chin  resting  in  cupped  palms. 

He  walked  over.  Betty's  eyes  were  fixed  on  him. 
He  stared  down  at  her,  suddenly  tongue-tied,  a  queer 
constricted  feeling  in  his  throat.     She  did  not  speak. 

"Were  you  sitting  here  when  I  came  along?"  he 
asked  at  last. 

"Yes,"  she  said.  "I  often  come  up  here.  I  have 
been  sitting  here  for  half  an  hour." 

MacRae  sat  down  beside  her.  His  heart  seemed  to 
be  trying  to  choke  him.  He  did  not  know  where  to 
begin,  or  how,  and  there  was  much  he  wanted  to  say 
that  he  must  say.  Betty  did  not  even  take  her  chin 
out  of  her  palms.  She  stared  out  at  the  sea,  rolling  up 
to  Squitty  in  silver  windrows. 

MacRae  put  one  arm  around  her  and  drew  her  up 
close  to  him,  and  Betty  settled  against  him  with  a 
little  sigh.  Her  fingers  stole  into  his  free  hand.  For  a 
minute  they  sat  like  that.  Then  he  tilted  her  head  back, 
looked  down  into  the  gray  pools  of  her  eyes,  and  kissed 
her. 

"  You  stood  there  looking  down  at  the  sea  as  if  you 
were  in  a  dream,"  she  whispered ;  "  and  all  the  time 
I  was  crying  inside  of  me  for  you  to  come  to  me.  And 
presently,  I  suppose,  you  will  go  away." 

"  No,"  he  said.     "  This  time  I  have  come  for  good." 

"  I  knew  you  would,  sometime,"  she  murmured.  "  At 
least,  I  hoped  you  would.     I  wanted  you  so  badly." 


AS  IT  WAS  IN  THE  BEGINNING        299 

"  But  because  one  wants  a  thing  badly  it  does  n't 
always  follow  that  one  gets  it." 

MacRae  was  thinking  of  his  father  when  he  spoke. 

"  I  know  that,"  Betty  said.  "  But  I  knew  that  you 
wanted  me,  you  see.  And  I  had  faith  that  you  would 
brush  away  the  cobwebs  somehow.  I  've  been  awfully 
angry  at  you  sometimes.  It's  horrible  to  feel  that 
there  is  an  imaginary  wall  between  you  and  some  one 
you  care  for." 

"  There  is  no  wall  now,"  MacRae  said. 

"  Was  there  ever  one,  really  ?  " 

"  There  seemed  to  be." 

"And  now  there  is  none?" 

"None  at  all." 

"Sure.'"'  she  murmured. 

"Honest  Injun,"  MacRae  smiled.  "I  went  to  see 
your  father  to-day  about  a  simple  matter  of  business. 
And  I  found  —  I  learned  —  oh,  well,  it  does  n't  matter. 
I  buried  the  hatchet.  We  are  going  to  be  married  and 
live  happily  ever  after." 

"Well,"  Betty  said  judiciously,  "we  shall  have  as 
good  a  chance  as  any  one,  I  think.  Look  at  Norman 
and  Dolly.  I  positively  trembled  for  them  —  after 
Norman  getting  into  that  mess  over  in  England.  He 
never  exactly  shone  as  a  real  he-man,  that  brother  of 
mine,  you  know.  But  they  are  really  happy.  Jack. 
They  make  me  envious." 

"I  think  you're  a  little  hard  on  that  brother  of 
yours,"  MacRae  said.  He  was  suddenly  filled  with  a 
great  charity  toward  all  mankind.  "He  never  had 
much  of  a  chance,  from  all  I  can  gather." 

He  went  on  to  tell  her  what  Norman  had  told  him 
that  afternoon  on  the  hill  above  the  Cove.  But  Betty 
interrupted. 


300  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

"  Oh,  I  know  that  now,"  she  declared.  "  Daddy  told 
me  just  recently.  Daddy  knew  what  Norman  was  doing 
over  there.  In  fact,  he  showed  me  a  letter  from  some 
British  miHtary  authority  praising  Norman  for  the 
work  he  did.  But  Daddy  kept  mum  when  Norman  came 
home  and  those  nasty  rumors  began  to  go  around.  He 
thought  it  better  for  Norman  to  take  his  medicine. 
He  was  afraid  mother  would  smother  him  with  money 
and  insist  on  his  being  a  proper  lounge  lizard  again, 
and  so  he  would  gradually  drop  back  into  his  old 
uselessness.  Daddy  was  simply  tickled  stiff  when  Nor- 
man showed  his  teeth  —  when  he  cut  loose  from  every- 
thing and  married  Dolly,  and  all  that.  He  's  a  very 
wise  old  man,  that  father  of  mine,  Jack.  He  hasn't 
ever  got  much  real  satisfaction  in  his  life.  He  has  been 
more  content  this  last  month  or  so  than  I  can  ever 
remember  him.  We  have  always  had  loads  of  money, 
and  while  it 's  nice  to  have  plenty,  I  don't  think  it  did 
him  any  good.  My  whole  life  has  been  lived  in  an 
atmosphere  of  domestic  incompatibility.  I  think  I 
should  make  a  very  capable  wife  —  I  have  had  so  many 
object  lessons  in  how  not  to  be.  My  mother  wasn't  a 
success  either  as  a  wife  or  a  mother.  It  is  a  horrible 
thing  to  say,  but  it 's  really  true.  Jack.  Mamma  's  a 
very  well-bred,  distinguished-looking  person  with  ex- 
quisite taste  in  dress  and  dinner  parties,  and  that's 
about  the  only  kind  thing  I  can  say  for  her.  Do  you 
really  love  me.  Jack?    Heaps  and  heaps?  " 

She  shot  this  question  at  him  with  a  swift  change  of 
tone  and  an  earnestness  which  straightway  drove  out  of 
MacRae's  mind  every  consideration  save  the  proper  and 
convincing  answer  to  such  intimate  questions. 

"Look,"  Betty  said  after  a  long  interval.  "Daddy 
has  built  a  fire  on  the  beach.     He  does  that  sometimes. 


AS  IT  WAS  IN  THE  BEGINNING        301 

and  we  sit  around  it  and  roast  clams  in  the  coals. 
Johnny,  Johnny,"  she  squeezed  his  arm  with  a  quick 
pressure,  "  we  're  going  to  have  some  good  times  on  this 
island  now." 

MacRae  laughed  indulgently.  He  was  completely  in 
accord  with  that  prophecy. 

The  blaze  Gower  had  kindled  flickered  and  wavered, 
a  red  spot  on  the  duskier  shore,  with  a  yellow  nimbus  in 
which  they  saw  him  move  here  and  there,  and  sit  down 
at  last  with  his  back  to  a  log  and  his  feet  stretched  to 
the  fire. 

"Let's  go  down,"  MacRae  suggested,  "and  break 
the  news  to  him." 

"I  wonder  what  he'll  say?"  Betty  murmured 
thoughtfully. 

"Haven't  you  any  idea?"  MacRae  asked  curiously. 

"No.  Honestly,  I  have  n't,"  Betty  replied.  "Daddy's 
something  like  you.  Jack.  That  is,  he  does  and  says 
unexpected  things,  now  and  then.  No,  I  really  don't 
know  what  he  will  say." 

"We'U  soon  find  out." 

MacRae  took  her  hand.  They  went  down  off  the 
backbone  of  the  Point,  through  ferns  and  over  the  long 
uncut  grass,  down  to  the  fire  where  the  wash  from  the 
heavy  swell  outside  made  watery  murmurs  along  the 
gravelly  beach. 

Gower  looked  up  at  them,  waited  for  them  to  speak. 

"  Betty  and  I  are  going  to  be  married  soon,"  MacRae 
announced  abruptly. 

"  Oh?  "  Gower  took  the  pipe  out  of  his  mouth  and 
rapped  the  ash  out  of  it  in  the  palm  of  his  hand.  "  You 
don't  do  things  half-heartedly,  do  you,  MacRae? 
You  deprive  me  of  a  very  profitable  business.  You 
want  my  ranch  —  and  now  my  housekeeper." 


302  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

"Daddy!"  Betty  remonstrated. 

"  Oh,  well,  I  suppose  I  can  learn  to  cook  for  myself," 
Gower  rumbled. 

He  was  frowning.  He  looked  at  them  staring  at 
him,  nonplussed.  Suddenly  he  burst  into  deep,  chuck- 
ling laughter. 

"  Sit  down,  sit  down,  and  look  at  the  fire,"  he  said. 
"  Bless  your  soul,  if  you  want  to  get  married  that 's 
your  own  business. 

"  Mind  you,"  he  chuckled  after  a  minute,  when  Betty 
had  snuggled  down  beside  him,  and  MacRae  perched  on 
the  log  by  her,  "  I  don't  say  I  like  the  idea.  It  don't 
seem  fair  for  a  man  to  raise  a  daughter  and  then  have 
some  young  fellow  sail  up  and  take  her  away  just  when 
she  is  beginning  to  make  herself  useful." 

"Daddy,  you  certainly  do  talk  awful  nonsense," 
Betty  reproved. 

"  I  expect  you  have  n't  talked  much  else  the  last  Kttle 
while,"  he  retorted. 

Betty  subsided.  MacRae  smiled.  There  was  a  whim- 
sicality about  Gower's  way  of  taking  this  that  pleased 
MacRae. 

They  toasted  their  feet  at  the  fire  until  the  waver- 
ing flame  burned  down  to  a  bed  of  glowing  coals.  They 
talked  of  this  and  that,  of  everything  but  themselves 
until  the  moon  was  swimming  high  and  the  patches  of 
cottony  cloud  sailing  across  the  moon's  face  cast  intense 
black  patches  on  the  silvery  radiance  of  the  sea. 

"  I  've  got  some  clams  in  a  bucket,"  Gower  said  at 
last.  "Let's  roast  some.  You  get  plates  and  forks 
and  salt  and  pepper  and  butter.  Bet,  while  I  put  the 
clams  on  the  fire." 

Betty  went  away  to  the  house.  Gower  raked  a  flat 
rock,  white-hot,  out  to  the  edge  of  the  coals  and  put 


AS  IT  WAS  IN  THE  BEGINNING        303 

fat  quahaugs  on  it  to  roast.  Then  he  sat  back  and 
looked  at  MacRae. 

"  I  wonder  if  you  realize  how  lucky  you  are?  "  he  said. 

"  I  think  I  do,"  MacRae  answered.  "  You  don't  seem 
much  surprised." 

Gower  smiled. 

"  Well,  no.  I  can't  say  I  am.  That  first  night  you 
came  to  the  cottage  to  ask  for  the  Arrow  I  got  a  good 
look  at  you,  and  you  struck  me  as  a  fine,  clean  sort 
of  boy,  and  I  said  to  myself,  'Old  Donald  has  never 
told  him  anything  and  he  has  no  grudge  against  me, 
and  would  n't  it  be  a  sort  of  compensation  if  those  two 
should  fall  naturally  and  simply  in  love  with  each  other? ' 
Yes,  it  may  seem  sentimental,  but  tliat  idea  occurred 
to  me.  Of  course,  it  was  just  an  idea.  Betty  would 
marry  whoever  she  wanted  to  marry.  I  knew  that. 
Nothing  but  her  own  judgment  would  influence  her  in 
a  matter  of  that  sort.  I  know.  I  've  watched  her  grow 
up.  Maybe  it 's  a  good  quality  or  maybe  it 's  a  bad 
one,  but  she  has  always  had  a  bull-dog  sort  of  persist- 
ence about  anything  that  strikes  her  as  really  important. 

"And  of  course  I  had  no  way  of  knowing  whether 
she  would  take  a  fancy  to  you  or  you  to  her.  So  I  just 
watched.  And  maybe  I  boosted  the  game  a  little,  be- 
cause I  'rti  a  pretty  wise  old  fish  in  my  own  way.  I  took 
a  few  whacks  at  you,  now  and  then,  and  she  flew  the 
storm  signals  without  knowing  it." 

Gower  smiled  reminiscently,  stroking  his  chin  with 
his  hand. 

**I  had  to  fight  you,  after  a  fashion,  to  find  out 
what  sort  of  stuff  you  were,  for  my  own  satisfaction," 
he  continued.  "I  saw  that  you  had  your  Scotch  up 
and  were  after  my  scalp,  and  I  knew  it  could  n't  be  any- 
thing but  that  old  mess.     That  was  natural.     But  I 


304  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

thought  I  could  square  that  if  I  could  ever  get  close 
enough  to  you.  Only  I  could  n't  manage  that  naturally. 
And  this  scramble  for  the  salmon  got  me  in  deep  before 
I  realized  where  I  was.  I  used  to  feel  sorry  for  you  and 
Betty.  I  could  see  it  coming.  You  both  talk  with  your 
eyes.  I  have  seen  you  both  when  you  didn't  know  I 
was  near. 

"So  when  I  saw  that  you  would  fight  me  till  you 
broke  us  both,  and  also  that  if  I  kept  on  I  would  not 
only  be  broke  but  so  deep  in  the  hole  that  I  could  never 
get  out,  I  shut  the  damned  cannery  up  and  let  every- 
thing slide.  I  knew  as  soon  as  you  were  in  shape  you 
would  try  to  get  this  place  back.  That  was  natural. 
And  you  would  have  to  come  and  talk  to  me  about  it. 
I  was  sure  I  could  convince  you  that  I  was  partly  human. 
So  you  see  this  is  no  surprise  to  me.  Lord,  no !  Why, 
I've  been  playing  chess  for  two  years  —  old  Donald 
MacRae's  knight  against  my  queen.'' 

He  laughed  and  thumped  MacRae  on  the  flat  of  his 
sturdy  back. 

"  It  might  have  been  a  stalemate,  at  that,"  MacRae 
said. 

"But  it  wasn^t,"  Gower  declared.  "Well,  I'll  get 
something  out  of  living,  after  all.  I  've  often  thought 
I  'd  like  to  see  a  big,  roomy  house  somewhere  along 
these  cliffs,  and  kids  playing  around.  You  and  Betty 
may  have  your  troubles,  but  you're  starting  right. 
You  ought  to  get  a  lot  out  of  life.  I  did  n't.  I  made 
money.  That 's  all.  Poured  it  into  a  rat  hole.  Bessie 
is  sitting  over  on  Maple  Point  in  a  big  drafty  house 
with  two  maids  and  a  butler,  a  two-thousand-acre  estate, 
and  her  pockets  full  of  Victory  Bonds.  She  isn't 
happy,  and  she  never  can  be.  She  never  cared  for  any- 
body but  herself,  not  even  her  children,  and  nobody 


AS  IT  WAS  IN  THE  BEGINNING        305 

cares  for  her.  I  'm  all  but  broke,  and  I  'm  better  off 
than  she  is.  I  liate  to  think  I  ever  fought  for  her. 
She  wasn't  worth  it,  MacRae.  That's  a  hell  of  a 
thing  for  a  man  to  say  about  a  woman  he  lived  with  for 
over  tliirty  years.  But  it's  true.  It  took  me  a  good 
many  miserable  years  to  admit  that  to  myself. 

"I  suppose  she'll  cling  to  her  money  and  go  on 
playing  the  grande  dame.  And  if  she  can  get  any  satis- 
faction out  of  that  I  'm  willing.  I  've  never  known  as 
much  real  peace  and  satisfaction  as  I  've  got  now.  All 
I  need  is  a  place  to  sleep  and  a  comfortable  chair  to  sit 
in.  I  don't  want  to  chase  dollars  any  more.  All  I  want 
is  to  row  around  the  Rock  and  catch  a  few  salmon  now 
and  then  and  sit  here  and  look  at  the  sea  when  I'm 
tired.  You're  young,  and  you  have  all  your  life  be- 
fore you  —  you  and  Betty.  If  you  need  money,  you 
are  pretty  well  able  to  get  it  for  yourself.  But  I  'm 
old,  and  I  don't  want  to  bother." 

He  rambled  on  until  Betty  came  down  with  plates 
and  other  things.  The  fat  clams  were  opening  their 
shells  on  the  hot  rock.  They  put  butter  and  seasoning 
on  the  tender  meat  and  ate,  talking  of  this  and  that. 
And  when  the  last  clam  had  vanished,  Gower  stuffed 
his  pipe  and  lit  it  with  a  coal.  He  gathered  up  the 
plates  and  forks  and  rose  to  his  feet. 

"  Good  night,"  he  said  benevolently.  "  I  'm  going  to 
the  house  and  to  bed.  Don't  sit  out  here  dreaming  all 
night,  you  two." 

He  stumped  away  up  the  path.  MacRae  piled  drift- 
wood on  the  fire.  Then  he  sat  down  with  his  back 
against  the  log,  and  Betty  snuggled  beside  him,  in  the 
crook  of  his  arm.  Beyond  the  Point  the  booming  of 
the  surf  rose  like  far  thunder.  The  tide  was  on  the  ebb. 
Poor  IVIan's  Rock  bared  its  kelp-thatched  head.     The 


3o6  POOR  MAN'S  ROCK 

racing  swells  covered  it  with  spray  that  shone  in  the 
moonlight. 

They  did  not  talk.  Speech  had  become  nonessential. 
It  was  enough  to  be  together. 

So  they  sat,  side  by  side,  their  backs  to  the  cedar 
log  and  their  feet  to  the  fire,  talking  little,  dreaming 
much,  until  the  fluffy  clouds  scudding  across  the  face 
of  the  moon  came  thicker  and  faster  and  lost  their 
snowy  whiteness,  until  the  radiance  of  the  night  was 
dimmed. 

Across  the  low  summit  of  Point  Old  a  new  sound  was 
carried  to  them.  Where  the  moonlight  touched  the 
Gulf  in  patches,  far  out,  whitecaps  showed. 

"  Listen,"  MacRae  murmured. 

The  wind  struck  them  with  a  puff  that  sent  sparks 
flying.  It  rose  and  fell  and  rose  again  until  it  whistled 
across  the  Point  in  a  steady  drone,  —  the  chill  breath  of 
the  storm-god. 

MacRae  turned  up  Betty's  wrist  and  looked  at  her 
watch. 

"  Look  at  the  time,  Betty  mine,"  he  said.  "  And  it 's 
getting  cold.     There'll  be  another  day." 

He  walked  with  her  to  the  house.  When  she  vanished 
within,  blowing  him  a  kiss  from  her  finger  tips,  MacRae 
cut  across  the  Point.  He  laid  hold  of  the  Blanco's 
dinghy  and  drew  it  high  to  absolute  safety,  then  stood 
a  minute  gazing  seaward,  looking  down  on  the  Rock. 
Clouds  obscured  the  moon  now.  A  chill  darkness  hid 
distant  shore  lines  and  mountain  ranges  which  had 
stood  plain  in  the  moon-glow,  a  darkness  full  of  rush- 
ing, roaring  wind  and  thundering  seas.  Poor  Man's 
Rock  was  a  vague  bulk  in  the  gloom,  forlorn  and  lonely, 
hidden  under  great  bursts  of  spray  as  each  wave  leaped 
and  broke  with  a  hiss  and  a  roar. 


AS  IT  WAS  IN  THE  BEGINNING        307 

MacRae  braced  himself  against  the  southeaster.  It 
ruffled  his  hair,  clawed  at  him  with  strong,  invisible 
fingers.  It  shrieked  its  fury  among  the  firs,  stunted  and 
leaning  all  awry  from  the  buffeting  of  many  storms. 

He  took  a  last  look  behind  him.  The  lights  in  Gower's 
house  were  out  and  the  white-walled  cottage  stood  dim 
against  the  darkened  hillside.  Then  MacRae,  smiling 
to  himself  in  the  dark,  set  out  along  the  path  that  led 
to  Squitty  Cove. 


THE    END 


By  the  author  of  "Big  Timber" 


NORTH  OF  FIFTY-THREE 


By  BERTRAND  W.  SINCLAIR 

Illustrated.     12mo.     Cloth. 


He  has  created  the  atmosphere  of  the  frozen  North  with 
wonderful  realism.  —  Boston  Olobe. 

Mr.  Sinclair's  two  characters  are  exceptionally  well-drawn  and 
sympathetic.  His  style  is  robust  and  vigorous.  His  pictures  of 
Canadian  life  stimulating.  —  New  York  Nation. 

Mr.  Sinclair  sketches  with  bold  strokes  as  befits  a  subject  set 
amid  limitless  surroundings.  The  book  is  readable  and  shows 
consistent  progress  in  the  art  of  novel  writing.— 5^.  Louis  Globe- 
Democrat. 

An  unusually  good  story  of  the  conflict  between  a  man  and  a 
woman.  It  is  a  readable,  well  written  book  showing  much  observa- 
tion and  good  sense.  The  hero  is  a  fine  fellow  and  manages  to 
have  his  fling  at  a  good  many  conventions  without  being  tedious. 
—  New  York  Sun. 

The  story  is  well  written.  It  is  rich  in  strong  situation,  romance 
and  heart-stirring  scenes,  both  of  the  emotional  and  courage- 
stirring  order.  It  ranks  with  the  best  of  its  type.  —  Springfield 
Republican. 


LITTLE,  BROWN  &  CO.,  Publishers 
34  Beacon  St.,  Boston. 


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